US presses Japan to open beef markets

 

 

The US pressed Japan Tuesday (March 16) to throw open its lucrative markets to foreign farm products, as US lawmakers demanded an end to curbs on American beef.

 

USDA secretary Tom Vilsack urged Tokyo to ease restrictions on agricultural imports ahead of an April visit to the country, which he said would also deal with a long-standing beef spat.

 

According to USDA's figures, Japan is the third largest market for US exports, with sales last year of US$11 billion. However, the two country's have frequently sparred over measures protecting sensitive domestic agricultural markets.

 

Japan banned US beef in December 2003 after the brain-wasting cattle disease bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) was found in a US herd.

 

Japan had until then been the US cattle industry's biggest export market.

 

The ban nearly grew into a full-blown trade war, with US farm-state senators pressing for sanctions unless Tokyo opened up its markets by the end of 2005. Japan agreed in 2006 to resume US imports on the condition that age and portion limits were imposed on cattle at the time of slaughter.

 

In tandem with Vilsack's push, top US lawmakers on Tuesday demanded the ''scientifically unfounded'' restrictions on US beef be eliminated.

 

Meanwhile, senators Baucus and Grassley also called for an end to ''preferential treatment'' of Japan Post in the country's insurance, banking, and express delivery markets at the expense of private competitors.

 

The US calls for better treatment come amid a major push by US President Barack Obama to double US exports, in the hope of clawing back some of the millions of jobs lost in the economic crisis.

 

A US agriculture official said Vilsack's focus would also be on increasing exports to Japan of grains, key US exports.