THE NEW YORK TIMES
WASHINGTON
— Ten Asian and Pacific nations have told the Office of the United
States Trade Representative that the Agriculture Department’s catfish
inspection program violates international law, and their objections
could hamper Obama administration efforts to reach a major Pacific trade
agreement by the end of next year.
They
say that the inspection program is a trade barrier erected under the
guise of a food safety measure and that it violates the United States’
obligations under World Trade Organization agreements. Among the
countries protesting are Vietnam and Malaysia, which are taking part in
talks for the trade agreement — known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership —
and have the ability to derail or hold up those negotiations.
The
complaints are outlined in a May 28 letter signed by diplomats from the
10 countries. The letter does not threaten retaliation, but it stresses
that the American catfish program stood in the way of the trade talks.
Vietnam, a major catfish producer,
has long complained about the program, but it has never before won
international support for its fight. Several of the countries whose
representatives signed the letter — including the Philippines, Myanmar,
Thailand and Indonesia — do not have catfish industries to protect and
are not involved in the trans-Pacific trade talks.
But
the letter expresses the concern that the inspection program could lead
the Agriculture Department to expand its ability to regulate seafood
exports to the United States, catfish or not.
“Many
of these countries are looking to see what happens to Vietnam on the
catfish issues, and what precedence it might set for other trade deals
in the region,” said Jeffrey J. Schott, a senior fellow at the Peterson
Institute for International Economics in Washington and the co-author of
a book on the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The United States and 11 countries on both sides of the Pacific — as well as Australia, New Zealand and Brunei — are still negotiating the trade pact, which has been repeatedly delayed over various disputes.
The
Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers recently hired
James Bacchus, a former chairman of the World Trade Organization’s
appeals panel, to prepare a possible legal challenge to the catfish
inspection program.
Mr.
Bacchus said in an interview that only governments have standing to
bring a case before the trade organization, but that the export group
was working closely with Vietnamese officials to monitor the catfish
inspection program.
“I’m
confident that Vietnam would have a case before the W.T.O. if they
decided to bring one,” said Mr. Bacchus, a former United States House
member from Florida who is now a lawyer with Greenberg Traurig in
Washington.
The
inspection program was inserted into the 2008 farm bill at the urging
of catfish farmers, who have been hurt by competition from both Vietnam
and China and by the rising cost of catfish feed. The domestic catfish
industry has shrunk by about 60 percent since its peak about a decade
ago, and in the past few years about 20 percent of American catfish
farming operations have closed.
The
catfish industry and lawmakers led by Senator Thad Cochran, Republican
of Mississippi, fought for the new office, saying it was needed to
protect Americans from eating fish raised in unsanitary conditions or
contaminated with drugs. The Food and Drug Administration has a similar
program, but it inspects less than 2 percent of food imports, and
advocates of the Agriculture Department program said that was not good
enough.
The
Agriculture Department has traditionally inspected meat and poultry,
while the F.D.A. has been responsible for all other foods, including
seafood.
Agriculture
Department inspections are more stringent than those conducted by the
F.D.A. The Agriculture Department requires meat- and poultry-exporting
countries to set up their own inspection programs — an expensive and
burdensome regulation that Vietnam says is unnecessary for catfish.
A Government Accountability Office report
in May 2012 called imported catfish a low-risk food and said an
Agriculture Department inspection program would “not enhance the safety
of catfish.”
The
Agriculture Department said it had spent $20 million since 2009 to set
up its office, which has a staff of four, although it has yet to inspect
a single catfish. The department said it expected to spend about $14
million a year to run the program; the F.D.A., by comparison, spends
about $700,000 annually on its existing seafood inspection office.
Senator
John McCain, Republican of Arizona, and other critics say the
Agriculture Department program is a waste of money, and Mr. McCain
sponsored an amendment in the latest farm bill that would have killed
the program. But the measure was never brought up for a vote. The Obama
administration has also called for eliminating the Agriculture
Department program.
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