U.S. Transportation Secretary Will Press Japan On Beef, Toyota Double-Standard
03/04/2010 07:12AM
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U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, making a trip to Japan, will argue that U.S. regulators are treating Toyota more fairly than their Japanese counterparts treat American beef, news service AFP reported.
“It's a point well made and one that we should be making when it comes to automobiles,” LaHood told Republican Senator Mike Johanns, according to a March 3 AFP story. Johanns had accused Tokyo of double-standards. “I'm going to raise it when I go to Japan,” LaHood said.
LaHood’s pledge came as a key U.S. Senate panel pressed Toyota, the world's top carmaker and regulators for their handling of safety defects tied to surprise spikes in speed now blamed for 52 reported U.S. deaths.
Johanns, from Nebraska, accused Tokyo in blunt language of having one safety standard for U.S. beef and another for Toyota's cars and said he was “extremely tired” of the imbalance, AFP reported.
Japan banned U.S. beef in December 2003 after the brain-wasting cattle disease bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) was found in a U.S. herd. Until then, Japan was the U.S. cattle industry's biggest export market.
The ban nearly grew into a full-blown trade war, with U.S. farm-state senators pressing for sanctions unless Tokyo opened up its markets by the end of 2005.
Japan agreed in 2006 to resume U.S. imports on condition age and portion limits were imposed on cattle at the time of slaughter.
Source: Bruce Blythe, Vance Publishing