Meat Products Trade

MEAT PRODUCTS TRADE BETWEEN THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITY AND THE UNITED STATES

This research examines the meat products trade between the European Community (EC) and the United States (US). Both red-meat and poultry meat products are included in this examination. One focal point of this examination concerns the effects of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the treaty establishing the World Trade Organization (WTO) likely will have on the meat products trade between the EC and the US.

The most serious and long-running dispute between the EC and the US in relation to meat products trade involves the EU ban on the importation of meat products produced from animals that have been raised with the use of either natural or synthetic growth hormones (United States Trade Representative, 1995, p. 110). The EC imposed a ban on the use of such hormones for livestock production within the EU on 1 January 1988, and the ban became effective for meat products imported into the EU on 1 January 1989. The ban has effectively eliminated the export of red-meat products from the US to the EC.

The United States estimated that the trade damage value of the ban approximates $97 million per year (United States Trade Representative, 1995, pp. 110-111). In retaliation, as of 1 January 1989 the US began imposing 100 percent tariffs in EU agricultural imports to the United States in the value of $97 million per year.

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to certain activities outside the jurisdiction of the regulating state (e.g., meat inspectors can be sent abroad to approve a product coming into the domestic market). However, a there is a real issue as to extraterritorial restrictions beyond these accepted norms" (Watson, 1994, p. 1247). Given the very serious debate generated by this issue, there will inevitably be a rethinking on when domestic rules can be imposed on goods and services produced abroad. Much of the future of the meat products industry rests on the ability of the industry to persuade consumers in other regions of the world to accept American-produced meat products (Fee, 1994, p. 27). Oddly, however, in opposition to making a product that the consumers of the world desire, American meat products producers appear to be determined to make a product tailored to their own profit goals, and then demand in the name of free-trade policy that the consumers in other countries buy their products. The US contends that the EU does not have a surplus problem, but a trade barrier problem. In this line of argument, the US calls for European agriculture to become a full partner in the GATT. France, the contention runs, could be competitive in farm exporting, as could the

Category: Economics - M