EU official addresses trade impact of inspection regime

EU official addresses trade impact of inspection regime U.S. efforts to move ahead with a law requiring all inbound cargo containers to be inspected at overseas ports by technical means would act as a further drag on economic activity at a time when many countries are confronting recession, the European Union’s top diplomat in the United States said Thursday.
   EU Ambassador John Bruton, speaking before the Bertlesmann Foundation in Washington about U.S.-EU relations during an Obama administration, described the 100 percent imaging of containers by 2012 as mandated by Congress as a “one-sided” and “discriminatory” security measure.
   The EU has been vocal since before the law’s passage in it’s opposition to X-ray style inspections of all containers because the potential disruption to trade at many ports without available real estate or resources to conduct scans in an efficient manner. It favors strengthening intelligence-based systems for targeting container inspections based on the risk of each shipment.
   Bruton complained that “the U.S. is not proposing to scan all containers leaving the U.S., and secondly all the costs are to be borne by the European exporter.
   “This is a protectionist measure which will harm transatlantic trade at the time when our flagging economies need more, not less, trade,” he said.
   On general trade matters, Bruton said the recent financial crisis might give renewed impetus to the Doha round of global talks to liberalize trade rules. He predicted developed countries would no longer be able to sustain costly subsidies for their farm sectors because of public funds are being diverted to bailing out the global financial system and propping up economies.
   Farm subsidies have been a major sticking point in negotiations between developed and developing nations on a global trade agreement.
   “Doha may provide an excuse to do things that governments want to do anyway,” Bruton said. “For example, with a Doha deal, the expensive U.S. Farm Bill could be more easily reversed, and scarce resources released for more urgent domestic issues.” ' Eric Kulisch