Tariff update - Beef Hormones dispute

As a follow-up to my stories in the March and April issues of Gourmet News, and my earlier blog post here, the revised tariff schedule in the Beef Hormones dispute goes into effect April 23.

Originally set to go into effect March 23, the U.S. Trade Representative delayed the new tariff schedule implementation by one month, it announced March 13.

I reached out to the USTR again this week, and USTR spokesperson Nefeterius McPherson said "we delayed them to April 23 in order to see if we could reach a negotiated settlement (with the European Union.) If we don’t reach a negotiated settlement by April 23, then the additional duties that were announced on January 15 will automatically go into effect.” 

Products being removed from the tariff schedule, such as rusks and mustard, were dropped from the list on March 23 as originally announced “in order to respect commercial arrangements that have been made in the period since January 15,” according to the USTR statement.

 One day after the Senate approved U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk to the top trade post, he was meeting with EU Trade Commissioner Catherine Ashton on March 19. 

You can read their joint statement here.

I continue to follow this ongoing story.  If there’s any updates, I’ll post them.

 

Anna Wolfe, editor of Gourmet News