U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky said Feb. 8 that an interagency task force has been established to look into new ways that the United States might use to force the European Union to lift its long-standing ban on imports of beef produced with growth-promoting hormones.
Barshefsky said at the hearing of the House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee that the group has been asked to come up with recommendations "as quickly as possible."
Last year, the United States imposed retaliatory trade sanctions against the EU for failing to comply with a ruling handed down by the World Trade Organization that the import ban violates WTO rules.
The sanctions took the form of 100 percent duties on imports of a wide range of mainly agricultural products from the EU worth roughly $116.8 million a year, from Roquefort cheese to ham.
Barshefsky said that the task force that has been created to study the issue will be looking into whether altering the current list of products would have a positive or negative impact on resolving the dispute. She said that the group will also be considering what products could be added or withdrawn from the current list in order to exert greater pressure on the Europeans.
She later told reporters, however, that the United States continues to oppose legislation that has been suggested by some members of Congress that would require the administration to periodically alter the retaliatory list by product or country--the so-called carousel approach to the problem.
Barshefsky said that administration, meanwhile, retains the authority to alter the list of products at any time.
Peter L. Scher, special negotiator for agriculture at USTR, said when the sanctions were imposed against the EU last year that all 15 EU member states would be affected by the higher import duties except the United Kingdom, which has consistently opposed the beef import ban. But he said that four EU member countries--France, Germany, Italy, and Denmark--would bear the brunt of the action because, according to Scher, they have "significant influence on this issue" within the EU.
He said that 24 percent of the value of the imports targeted were from France, 24 percent from Germany, 21 percent from Italy, and 15 percent from Denmark, which the EU's largest exporter of meat.
By Gary G. Yerkey
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