WASHINGTON: Agriculture will be part of the negotiations between the United States and the European Union, whether Brussels wants to discuss it or not, US Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said today.
He told reporters that “while they may love for agriculture to be outside the scope, it’s very much in our interests to address that with the EU, particularly on the non-tariff barriers that they continue to promulgate.”
Even though an EU official denied the topic was part of the agreement reached last week between President Donald Trump and EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, Perdue said Monday that, “frankly that is not in keeping with our understanding.”
Perdue raised another point of contention over Europe’s “increasingly aggressive” moves to “trademark” common food names like feta or mozzarella that have been sold in the US for 100 years.
Brussels wants to prevent other countries from using the geographic names and “we don’t plan to comply with that,” he said.
Trump and Juncker last week announced a truce in the ongoing trade dispute over US tariffs on steel and aluminum and proposed duties on autos, as well as the EU’s retaliation against key US goods.

app