Washington - The United States and the European Union are headed for another serious agricultural trade battle if European officials do not comply with a trade ruling on beef, the Clinton administration said.
The World Trade Organization ruled in February 1998 that the 15-nation EU's ban on hormone-treated beef imports was illegal and had to be dropped by May 13, 1999.
U.S. Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman said that the EU had shown "a lot of resistance” to complying with the ruling and warned if the Europeans did not comply, trade tensions between the two could get much worse.
Glickman's warning came as the United States was preparing to impose $520 million in punitive duties on EU imports from cookies to chandeliers in response to a trade dispute over bananas. Many trade officials are concerned the bitter dispute could undermine the authority of the WTO and its role as an arbiter for its 133 member countries.
"They know that if May comes and goes and there is no successful resolution of this issue we're looking at conflicts that will meet or exceed the conflicts we have on bananas,” Glickman told U.S. reporters on a conference call from Moscow.
Glickman's comments came after he met with EU Agriculture Commissioner Franz Fischler over the weekend in Berlin.
"We made the point that the United States and Europe have too much to lose ...,” Glickman said. "There's got to be adherence to world-based rules. Once decisions are made, people have to honor those.”
As in the banana dispute, the EU has lost two WTO panel decisions on its decade-old ban on imports of beef from cattle that have been treated with hormones to make them grow bigger and faster. The WTO gave the EU 15 months to lift the ban, but Glickman said,
The United States produces some hormone-treated beef although the USDA was unable to provide exact figures.
In the banana row, the United States is seeking sanctions because it says the EU has failed to comply with a 1997 WTO ruling that found its banana import policies discriminated against U.S. companies and Latin American producers.
The EU, however, says its new import rules that took effect Jan. 1 comply with WTO rules and the United States is violating international laws by unilaterally imposing trade sanctions in the dispute. The United States says the new rules do not comply with WTO rulings and that it is within its rights to seek compensation for the loss of banana trade.
On Monday, the World Trade Organization's Dispute Settlement Body was scheduled to meet to discuss the banana dispute but the meeting was blocked by Caribbean banana-producing countries. The move prevented the United States from gaining WTO approval of the punitive duties.
The United States exported more than $8.5 billion of farm products to the EU in fiscal 1998, which ended Sept. 30, while it imported nearly $7.3 billion of EU agricultural goods.
U.S. Agriculture Department Undersecretary Gus Schumacher will travel to Brussels later this week to meet with his EU counterparts to discuss the trade disputes, Glickman said.
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