The European Commission said it was seeking the approval of EU governments “to allocate to the United States a part of the existing quota” for hormone-free beef that is currently open to other exporting countries, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The EU issued a ban in 1998 on beef treated with any of six specific growth-promoting hormones, which blocked U.S. beef from entering most of Europe’s meat market. The Word Trade Organization (WTO) ruled such a ban was inconsistent with the EU’s WTO obligations and gave the EU a year to lift the ban and comply with their ruling.
When the deadline passed without any change to the ban, the U.S. requested and received authorization to impose retaliatory measures in the form of 100 percent ad valorem tariffs (tax based on the value of a transaction or property) on 34 products from across the EU.
This situation remained unchanged until 2009, when the U.S. and EU signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) in which the EU agreed to create a new duty-free quota for importing up to 45,000 metric tons of hormone-free beef from outside the EU in exchange for the elimination of increased U.S. tariffs on EU imports.
The MOU was intended to provide an opportunity for U.S. producers to export additional beef to the EU market but has, in recent years, failed to provide those benefits to U.S. beef producers thanks to increased imports under the duty-free quota from non-U.S. suppliers, notably Australia and Latin America.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Argentina alone uses up more than half of the quota. The U.S. and Canada combined exported only 2,351.37 tons to the EU this year as of the end of July, which is an immense increase from the previous two years when the U.S. and Canada together exported less than 500 tons a year.
The EU has stressed the quota will not increase, a move that would be bound to upset EU beef producers, nor will it be lifting the hormone ban. The talks between the EU and the U.S. would simply carve out a portion of that quota specifically for U.S. products and possibly split the whole quota among exporting countries.
Phil Hogan, the EU’s agriculture commissioner, said this step would hopefully “ease tensions across the Atlantic” after moments earlier this year when it appeared threats from President Trump to hit the EU car sector with punitive tariffs could spark another trade war, the Financial Times reports.
Australia and Uruguay are already requesting to be part of the negotiations, with other exporting countries sure to follow. Upon approval from all EU governments, negotiations on beef could start before the end of the year. 
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Carrie Veselka
- Associate Editor
- Progressive Dairyman
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