Support For A Trade Agreement With Japan
US - US President Barack Obama received a letter from 27 US Senators yesterday, March 8, 2011, offering support of the administration’s efforts to expand the presence of US businesses and exports in the Asia-Pacific region through the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
9 March 2011
3 minute read
Most recently, Japan expressed interest in joining the TPP, causing the policymakers to extend cautious optimism to the president. First of all, the senators noted the importance of expanding market access into important economies such as Japan, but they also referred to the history of the US, Japan trade relationship.
“It is also encouraging that the leaders of the Japanese government have expressed their interest in joining the TPP and thus eliminating their tariff and non-tariff trade barriers to US goods and services,” the senators penned. “However, given Japan’s historical intransigence in allowing market access for American agricultural goods, we write to express reservations regarding Japan’s inclusion in these negotiations until certain conditions are met. In addition to prohibitively high tariffs on many agricultural goods, Japan has discriminated against US beef imports with restrictions that are inconsistent with international standards and not based on scientific criteria.”
Japan closed its market to US beef in December of 2003, after the discovery of a Canadian-born cow infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in the United States. At that time, Japan was the largest export market for US beef, valued at $1.4 billion. Since then, Japan has had restrictions in place on US beef imports and currently only allows imports of beef from cattle aged 20 months and younger. National Cattlemen’s Beef Association Manager of Legislative Affairs Kent Bacus said the restrictions put US cattlemen and women at a competitive disadvantage without any science-based rationale.
“The United States hasn’t taken this lightly. We have multiple safeguards currently in place that have prevented BSE from taking hold in our country,” said Mr Bacus. “The trade barriers Japan has in place on US beef appear to be motivated by something other than science.”
The US Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has aggressively enhanced its BSE surveillance system since 1990, testing at levels forty times higher than recommended by the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE). As a result, out of a US cattle inventory numbering nearly 100 million head every year, there have only been three confirmed cases of BSE since 2003. In contrast, Japan, with an annual cattle inventory of only 4.5 million head, has had 36 cases of BSE since 2003. Because of these efforts, the United States is classified as a controlled risk country by the OIE, which indicates that US beef products are completely safe for export and consumption.
“If Japan asks for inclusion in the TPP negotiations, we encourage you to press Japanese leaders to immediately relax its restrictions on US beef to be fully consistent with OIE guidelines and reopen its market,” the senators penned. “At the very least, Japan should agree to immediately relax its age restrictions to 30 months and address other issues necessary to achieve a commercially-viable, science-based import protocol, while also laying a clear pathway for eventual full OIE compliance. Likewise, we would have serious reservations with any TPP agreement submitted to Congress that includes Japan if it has not made commitments to fully complete this process, as well as eliminate tariff and non-tariff barriers on its TPP partners’ agricultural exports.”
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