Grand Forks Herald | By Jerry Hagstrom | April 5, 2004
The Bush administration does not appear to be making much headway in its attempts to convince the Japanese to reopen the U.S. beef market without testing all cattle for mad cow disease or bovine spongiform encephalopathy.
After the Japanese government on April 1 rejected a U.S. proposal to ask an international organization to resolve the mad cow disease issue, Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman and U.S. Trade Representative Bob Zoellick appeared to be threatening a World Trade Organization lawsuit. But House Agriculture Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., and National Cattlemen's Beef Association officials said April 1 they do not believe the Bush administration should launch a WTO suit to try to reopen the Japanese market to U.S. beef.
The Associated Press reported from Tokyo on April 1 that the Japanese government had rejected a U.S. proposal that the United States and Japan jointly ask the World Organization for Animal Health to set up a panel to reach agreement on definitions of mad cow disease and how to test for it.
Japanese officials announced the rejection at a press conference in Tokyo. A spokeswoman for Veneman said Veneman had written Japanese officials on March 29 that USDA had received no response from the Japanese. Veneman and Zoellick issued a joint statement that they "are disappointed that the Japanese response to our proposal was conveyed through the press instead of engaging in constructive dialogue about the merits of the proposal."
That statement seemed like a veiled threat of a WTO case, but at an NCBA breakfast, also on April 1, Goodlatte said he would encourage the meat industry and the Bush administration to "work with Japanese consumers and restaurant owners to keep the pressure on" the Japanese government to allow U.S. beef back into the country. Goodlatte said the United States could argue in the WTO that Japan is "not proceeding with sound science," but he added, "If we get to that point, we'd be acknowledging we're in for the long haul" rather than expecting the market to open soon.
Goodlatte also noted that a WTO panel ruled that the European Union did not follow sound science in banning U.S. hormone-fed beef, but that the European Union still has refused to import meat from hormone-fed animals. Later, NCBA CEO Terry Stokes said NCBA would "want to exhaust other measures" before encouraging the administration to take the issue to the WTO. NCBA officials declined to speculate on when other countries might begin to reopen their borders to U.S. beef, but NCBA Washington lobbyist Chandler Keys said he was urging the Bush administration to focus attention on other Asian markets such as Taiwan and Hong Kong as well as Japan.
Goodlatte said he is opposed to testing animals for the Japanese market if the meat industry does not want to conduct such tests for the U.S. market. Noting that exports made up 10 percent of beef sales before the case of mad cow disease eliminated most U.S. exports, Goodlatte said, "My advice to the beef industry as it seeks to reopen the market is straightforward: Stick together, tell the administration what you're willing to do and what you're not willing to do and, finally, don't agree to anything for foreign markets that you don't want to do domestically. A cure that is worse than the disease is no cure at all."
Goodlatte also said an animal identification system should be constructed from the ground up rather than imposed by USDA. "The time is overdue for the producer segment to seize the initiative and take control of this discussion" or "be content" with a system imposed by others, Goodlatte said.
Japan was the most lucrative market for U.S. beef, but it banned all U.S. beef after the discovery of a single case of mad cow disease in a cow in Washington state in late December. Japan has had its own cases of mad cow disease and tests all animals intended for human consumption to restore consumer confidence in the meat supply.Grand Forks Herald:
