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Hormonal beef and chlorine chicken could be coming to UK if trade deal with US goes ahead

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by Ben Riley-Smith, Assistant Political Editor

First it was chlorine-rinsed chicken. Now the Americans want to get another culinary delicacy into UK supermarkets – hormone-pumped beef.

The item is explicitly mentioned in a list of trade barriers the United States wants to reduce in an official document published this year.

American trade officials are frustrated by a European Union-wide ban on beef that is packed with hormones to fuel its growth. Critics claims the ban defies world trading rules and is only in place to protect cow farmers on the Continent.

 However green activists will likely oppose lifting the ban and demand the Tories deliver their promise to protect environmental standards after Brexit.
Liam Fox, U.K. international trade secretary, speaks at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington Credit: Eric Thayer/Bloomberg

The row is set to become the new front line in the emerging battle over Britain’s trade relationship with the United States. Liam Fox, the International Trade Secretary, jetted out to Washington DC last week to formally start new talks about boosting trade between the countries.

Brexiteers are hopeful Donald Trump’s positive rhetoric about a “very powerful” trade deal with Britain can calm fears about the economic impact of leaving the EU.

However Mr Fox’s trip was overshadowed by a row over US hopes to sell chlorinated-chicken into Britain – something currently banned under the EU.

It created a Cabinet split, with Mr Fox refusing to condemn the proposal – noting there were no health implications – but Michael Gove, the Environment Secretary, rejecting it. It has since emerged that the US wants to knock down bans on other controversial farming methods.

The US Trade Representative’s 2017 analysis of worldwide trade barriers criticised the EU’s “bans and restrictions on meat produced using hormones”.

It adds: “The EU’s ban on growth promotant hormones in beef has been found to be inconsistent with its World Trade Organisation obligations.” Any debate over the demand is likely to last years because Britain cannot sign any free trade deals until it is formally out of the EU, due in March 2019.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/07/29/hormonal-beef-chlorine-chicken-could-coming-uk-trade-deal-us/

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