Agriculture Secretary Says Food Safety Should Be 'Zero Tolerance' in NAFTA
Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue told Canadian Agriculture Minister Lawrence MacAulay and Mexican Secretary of Agriculture, Livestock, Rural Development, Fisheries and Food Jose Calzada this week that food safety should be a “zero tolerance” issue in NAFTA, he said during a…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
June 21 press gaggle as he traveled to Iowa aboard Air Force One (here). Perdue also told his counterparts that NAFTA should include provisions setting equivalency between the three parties’ food and food safety standards. U.S.-Canada Border Inspection Alliance President Walter Piatkowski in comments on NAFTA noted the difference between the U.S.'s zero-tolerance policy for listeria in food imports and Canada's tolerance level for the bacteria. He called for the U.S. to maintain its current agricultural inspection regime throughout NAFTA talks (see 1706150035). The meeting, which included a visit to the Port of Savannah, laid the groundwork for NAFTA negotiations, including some potentially contentious matters, Perdue said. “It was a great building relationship to develop the basis for discussions when maybe some of the discussions are not as comfortable as that -- when we have to discuss issues that we need to have very candid and direct family conversations about,” he said.