U.S. again urges Japan to fully open its market to U.S. beef

WASHINGTON, Jan. 10 (AP) - (Kyodo)—The United States reasserted its call on Japan Thursday to lift all its mad cow disease-linked controls on U.S. beef imports and fully open its beef market.
"As a major trading nation that's dependent on a rules-based international system, Japan should be therefore implementing international rules and recommendations," James Zumwalt, director of the State Department's Office of the Japanese Affairs.
"We believe that it is really imperative for Japan to adopt those international rules," he told reporters, citing the decision made last May by the World Organization for Animal Health to allow the United States to export beef regardless of cattle age.
Japan and the United States are at loggerheads over U.S. insistence that Tokyo abolish all its limits on U.S. beef imports to meat coming from cattle aged 20 months or younger.
Since last June, the two nations have held talks on relaxing Japan's beef import terms for U.S. beef. Tokyo is considering raising the limit to cattle aged 30 months or younger.
Zumwalt expressed confidence that Japanese imports of American beef will recover in the long run. Japan was the biggest foreign market for U.S. beef before the first U.S. case of mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, was found in December 2003.
"What we're hearing is that the real problem right now is supply that Japanese supermarkets and buyers and food chains are not able to purchase enough quantities of U.S. beef," he said. "So that's very encouraging."
"We'll continue working with the Japanese government trying to help them adopt these rules and meantime, we ask for the patience of Japanese consumers in Japan" who are willing to eat "safe," less expensive and "delicious" U.S. beef, he said.
The ban was lifted in December 2005 under conditions including the age limit, but was reinstated the following month after a veal shipment from the United States was found to contain part of a backbone, a risk material banned under the bilateral beef trade agreement.
The ban was again removed in July 2006 under the same conditions.