Key Lawmaker Warns Japan on Beef Ban
By REUTERS
September 28, 2005
Filed at 3:48 p.m. ET
nytimes.com
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Exasperated U.S. lawmakers warned on Wednesday they would retaliate against Japan for unfair trade measures unless the Bush administration seized the initiative in long-running disputes, including beef.
At a hearing to examine trade relations between the two countries, lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representative urged U.S. officials to seek redress at the World Trade Organization if needed to resolve trade spats.
``This hearing is drawing a line. There are no more tomorrows,'' House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas said. The California Republican accused the Bush administration witnesses of making excuses for Japan's ``stonewalling'' on Japan's ban on beef, which was instituted after the United States diagnosed its first case of mad cow disease in December 2003.
``I'm a little disappointed in you folks coming here and being apologists,'' Thomas said.
Rep. Clay Shaw, a Florida Republican, and many other lawmakers expressed similar frustrations and agreed Congress might have to step in if the Bush administration does not do more to persuade Japan to lift the ban.
``I think we need to put some penalties in place for stonewalling,'' Shaw said.
In prepared testimony, the Bush administration said it was urgent that Japan lift the beef ban, which the U.S. cattle industry estimates costs them $100 million each month.
``We have repeatedly told the Japanese government that it is critically important to resolve this,'' said Ellen Terpstra, administrator of the U.S. Agriculture Department's Foreign Agricultural Service.
``The Japanese assure us they are working through the process to reopen their market to safe U.S. beef,'' Terpstra said in testimony prepared for the House Ways and Means Committee. ``As time quickly passes, those assurances ring hollow -- the time to act is now.''
The two nations agreed nearly a year ago on a broad framework for resuming trade in beef from cattle aged 20 months or younger, which are considered to have the lowest risk of mad cow disease.
But no shipments have occurred because the ban is in the hands of Japan's independent Food Safety Commission, which has been studying the trade issue.
The Republican head of the Senate Agriculture Committee on Tuesday expressed growing frustration at Japan's failure to reopen its market to U.S. beef shipments and said trade sanctions may be needed.
The strain in the U.S.-Japan trade relations comes at a critical juncture in world trade talks. Unless countries can agree soon on a formula for cutting farm subsidies and tariffs, efforts to reach a new world trade deal could collapse at a key meeting of trade ministers in Hong Kong in December.
Wendy Cutler, assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Japan, Korea and APEC affairs, said Tokyo was not doing its part to make world trade talks a success.
``Frankly, the Japanese have allowed their protectionist domestic agricultural interests to prevail, and this has been disappointing,'' Cutler said.
If world trade talks are to succeed, she said, ``Japan will have to substantially reduce its tariffs on agricultural products and ensure meaningful improvements in market access.''
* Copyright 2005 Reuters Ltd. |
