Beef and Roquefort Make Peace

The United States and Europe signed an agreement Wednesday that should put an end to their alimentary conflict. Washington has basically given up on the idea of a 300% tax on the import of Roquefort on its soil. In exchange, Europe will still not allow the arrival of hormone-treated American beef on its plates. But, it does allow the United States to export thousands of tons of extra meat to Europe.

Will the nearly thirty-year-old agro-commercial struggle between the United States and Europe now be at an end? This is, in any case, what is to be imagined from the agreement signed by the two parties on Wednesday. In spite of the threats that it has been making since January, the American government has finally committed to not surcharging the import of European products, as it had been expected to do at the beginning of this week. In exchange, there is still no question of allowing the import into Europe of American beef doped with growth hormones, but the United States will benefit from privileged access to the European market, allowing it a one-time outflow of 20,000 tons of extra meat and up to 45,000 tons per year three years from now.

The document signed on Wednesday is only a preliminary agreement, but it should put an end to the struggle between Washington and Brussels. Well, mostly between Washington and Paris… because prominent on the list of European products threatened by the customs surcharge were such items as Roquefort, mustard (Dijon, among others), and foie gras, etc.

A Fool’s Bargain?

Conceived as so many punishments are, the United States’ customs surcharges had as their stated objective the decrease of European imports. What better means to dissuade American consumers than to impose a nearly unaffordable price on European products? Thus, Roquefort, already taxed at 100% since 1998, was threatened with seeing its border rights leap to 300% starting Saturday. The truce concluded between Washington and Brussels was therefore reached in extremis.

With the announcement of the signing of this agreement, Michel Barnier, Minister of Agriculture, did not, however, jump for joy. To forbid beef with hormones is to apply the principle of precaution. He insists that it’s out of the question to “pay economic concessions” for European food security. All the more so since these “concessions” are far from being insignificant. Of course, the United States is committed to not implementing new customs reprisals. But those that are already in effect, the 79 million dollars of annual surcharges, are not going to disappear – at least not right away. To summarize, the only guarantee obtained for the moment by the Union is to not be on the receiving end of further sanctions. In exchange for this, the United States has obtained a quadrupling of their import quotas for meat, as well as the provisional withdrawal of European legal actions against them, before the OMC. All of which is a way of saying that the cow has the lion’s share in this peace accord.