Laws ensuring the safety of imported food could violate World Trade Organization rules

[Robbien]

Cal Dooley, president of the Grocery Manufacturers/Food Products Association, said putting a fee on food imports to pay for increased inspections would violate "national treatment" provisions of the WTO, which require members to treat imported goods the same as domestic products.

http://www.thestar.com/Business/article/268366

Imported products to be treated the same as domestic products. Since there is no testing of imported products, domestic producers can make a claim not to have to do safety tests on items made/grown here. Right?

[Kagemusha]

1. Did you not read what the person said?

Cal Dooley said putting a FEE on food imports to pay for increased inspections would violate "national treatment" provisions.

Because experience has taught nations that such a fee never, ever exists to pay for inspections. It's just an excuse for a tariff.

Edit: Considering the titanic money spent on war, surely the US government can afford increased inspections without such fees.

[Robbien]

3. Yes, the article main point is about fees

but the rule it cites is just a general one stating imported should be treated the same as domestic.

[Kagemusha]

4. Just a general one? You can read the above and say that with a straight face?

Think for a moment. The issue here is levying a fee on imported foods that does not exist on domestic foods, penalizing them because the opinion of the US is that foreign foods are suspect and require extra inspection. That is treating the imported foods different IN A FINANCIAL SENSE.

Given the long and rich history of tariffs hiding behind "fees" and that these are rules of the World Trade Organization arrived at over literally decades of negotiations, to dismiss the matter as "just a general (rule)" is missing the main point: the rule is primarily about financial discrimination to begin with. In other words, it's ABOUT the fees. No one writes WTO rules under the assumption that imported foods are toxic and will kill citizens of the importing country.

Various DU'ers could get away with making me believe that possibly the rules really are written that stupidly until the original post of this thread. Now I see exactly what the rule refers to and will no longer be fooled by such dramatic rhetoric.

[pnwmom]

2. But we do inspect domestic food producers.

So it would seem to me that we should be able to inspect imported food as well.

[TZ]

5. There is *some* inspection of imported goods

Not nearly enough though (Some tainted seafood from China and some fruit laced with banned pesticides from South America come to mind as being rejected recently). Like everything else there is inadequate funding/staffing