Reuters | October 19, 1999
WASHINGTON - The Clinton administration said Tuesday it was waiting for a "sensible proposal" from other nations to address genetically modified (GM) food issues at the round of world trade talks that begin next month.
European consumer fears about the long-term safety and environmental impact of GM foods threaten to overshadow the agriculture agenda of the World Trade Organization talks, which are intended to focus on farm tariffs, subsidies and other trade barriers.
While Washington has maintained that scientific studies showed biotech foods to be safe, it has recently acknowledged that EU and Asian consumer resistance could jeopardize American exports of GM corn, soybeans and other crops.
David Aaron, the Commerce Department's undersecretary for international trade, said scientific and regulatory agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration are better qualified to consider the safety of GM foods than the WTO.
But he conceded that pressure was growing for biotech foods to be addressed in some fashion at next month's WTO meeting.
"I know that there is kind of a sense that maybe the WTO will do something about this because it's in trade," Aaron told reporters after giving a speech on trade issues. "We're waiting to see someone make a sensible proposal about what might be done in the WTO. So far we haven't seen one."
Japan, which is requiring labels on GM foods, has proposed creating a WTO working committee to look at biotech food issues.
In what some European activist groups hailed as an about-face, the Food and Drug Administration said Monday it would hold public hearings to take another look at safety concerns surrounding GM foods.
FDA officials downplayed the move, saying the agency was simply looking at possible ways to give American consumers more information about GM foods by requiring labels, launching web sites or developing other ways.
Washington wants to work with the EU and other trading partners to "conduct some effort of public education" about GM foods, Aaron said.
European consumers need reassurance about food safety after a series of high-profile outbreaks of mad cow disease, dioxin-contaminated chicken and other problems, he said.
"Those are really the underpinning issues that have created this situation in Europe where people don't trust not just the food, but they don't trust their regulators," Aaron said. "That's not exactly a WTO issue in our judgment."
Aaron also repeated the administration's position that the WTO talks should not reopen a landmark food safety and sanitary agreement reached at the end of the last round of world trade negotiations.
That pact, known as the Sanitary and Phytosanitary Agreement, established that food safety regulations must be based on science and not on factors such as consumer preference.
"We would be reluctant to see that (sanitary agreement) opened up, and subject to a lot of political forces that are based on misunderstanding and public hysteria," Aaron said.
American farmers are currently harvesting a crop dominated by biotechnology. More than half of U.S. soybeans, and nearly as much corn, was grown this year from GM varieties.
The United States depends on export markets to sell some $50 billion annually in farm goods.
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