010246 Canada, U.S. Lifts Brazil Beef Ban

Toronto - Facing a deadline for a possible trade war, Canada announced it was lifting a three-week ban on Brazilian beef products that had forced the United States and Mexico to follow suit.

The announcement by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency came after the U.S. Agriculture Department confirmed it was lifting the U.S. ban, which Canada had initially imposed because Brazil failed to provide information that would prove its beef was free of mad cow disease.

No cases of mad cow disease have ever occurred in Brazil, and the Brazilian government accused Canada of imposing the ban on Feb. 2 to punish Brazil over a trade dispute involving government subsidies to Embraer, an aircraft manufacturer that competes with Bombardier of Canada.

Under the North American Free Trade Agreement, the United States and Mexico were required to join the Canadian ban. In Brazil, the ban sparked public protests against Canada, with people refusing to sell Canadian goods and dockhands leaving cargo from Canada unloaded.

A team of experts from Canada, the United States and Mexico went to Brazil last week to assess the situation. Canadian officials said Friday they were satisfied that Brazil had taken sufficient measures to prevent BSE, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, commonly known as mad cow disease.

Mad cow disease has caused widespread concern in Europe, where scientists have linked it to the human version of a fatal brain-wasting ailment, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

The Canadian statement was similar to a U.S. Department of Agriculture statement issued earlier that said Brazil “has taken sound measures” to prevent mad cow disease.

Imports from Brazil will have to meet several conditions, the U.S. statement said. The meat must be certified as coming from cattle that were born and raised in Brazil and exclusively grass-fed, and the cattle also must have been born after a 1996 ban on feeding beef or sheep meal to cattle.

“USDA has pledged to work expeditiously to resolve this issue,” Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman said. “The Brazilian government has been very cooperative in this effort and we are pleased to announce this decision today.”

Brazilian Agriculture Minister Marcus Pratini de Moraes thanked Veneman.

Wearing a tie depicting smiling, dancing cows that has become his trademark through the dispute, Pratini de Moraes said Mexico would also lift the ban Monday, albeit as a formality, because it imports no Brazilian beef anyway.

“We are sure Brazil has no BSE and we can certify this for products we export around the whole world,” he told reporters.

A Canadian foreign affairs spokesman said there was no message in the timing of the announcements by Washington and Ottawa. The U.S. government generally gets its announcements out more quickly than the Canadian government, said the spokesman, Andre Lemay.

“Are we following the U.S. lead on this? No. It's the time it takes,” he said.

In imposing the ban on Brazilian corned beef and beef extract, Canada claimed Brazil had failed to provide sufficient paperwork on several thousand animals imported from Europe.

Canada imports about dlrs 6 million a year worth of corned beef from Brazil and about dlrs 667,000 worth of extract, used as a flavoring by the food industry. It has never imported fresh or frozen beef or cattle from Brazil.

The United States imported dlrs 82 million in Brazilian beef products last year, and Brazilian officials said the ban automatically cost the country 10% of its beef export markets.

The Brazilian government gave Canada three weeks to lift the ban or face a major trade war. The deadline was Friday.

The Canadian ban came as the trade dispute with Brazil over export subsidies for the aerospace industry remained unresolved. Canada has permission from the World Trade Organization to impose trade sanctions on Brazilian products, but has yet to implement them.

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