Carter may hold key to N.Z. meat trade

Press, 27 August 1977, Page 23

Carter may hold key to N.Z. meat trade

NZPA staff correspondent Washington The United States International Trade Commission will vote on August 30 on whether imports of foreign beef, New Zealand’s included, have damaged the domestic cattle industry. An I.T.C. spokesman announced the poll after a session at which I.T.C. staff reviewed for the commission statistical data on imports and the industry, gathered at a series of hearings this United States summer. If the I.T.C. decides that imports have hurt domestic suppliers, it will vote a week later on what remedy to propose to President Carter.

It has a September 17 deadline for making a recommendation to the President. Mr Carter has the final say on any remedy — higher tariffs, or lower quotas, or a combination of both — subject only to Congress overriding him. If the I.T.C. finds no damage by imports, the case ends there and then. The August 30 decision will be based on evidence presented at hearings where cattlemen alleged that imports were the cause of problems facing the industry, and exporters and American importers argued this was not so. People who attended the

hearings in South Dakota, Texas, New York and Missouri, have said that everyone agrees that the United States cattle industry is in trouble at the moment, with a production glut and low prices. But they have also said that the parade of “bleeding heart” witnesses produced by cattlemen failed to prove that imports were the prime cause, or indeed a cause at all, of the woes facing the industry. The successful petition for the I.T.C. investigation was brought by a small, South Dakota-based, group of cattlemen. They were not supported in their petition by the giant American National Cattlemen’s Association. The A.N.C.A. warned in May that attempts to get tougher restrictions against imports might backfire. The association did appear at one session, and suggested some tightening of beef imports controls, but did not provide much support for the petitioners. Under existing law, beef exporting nations are tied to voluntary restraint quotas that are renegotiated each year. New Zealand is permitted to ship $263.8M pounds of frozen beef to the United States this year under the arrangement. The investigation has been taken very seriously by New Zealand and Australia, the leading exporters of beef to the United States and representatives of the meat boards of both countries testified at the hearings.