Word: roquefort
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...Making Puer tea as internationally renown as Roquefort cheese could expand China's tea exports while adding a bit of luster to a food industry infamous for its health scandals. But building a Puer brand will depend on getting control of a market riddled with imposters, financial speculation and controversies...
...Read about an international skirmish over roquefort cheese...
...Thursday's move reflects a last-gasp provocation by the Bush administration, which has never forgotten France's emphatic non before the invasion of Iraq. Mistral - who was economic adviser at the French Embassy in Washington during the stormy period from 2001 to 2006 - says the current swipe at Roquefort will prove less economically threatening than the Iraq-triggered American public boycott of France's wines in 2003 - and shorter-lived than the deportation of French fries from Congress' menu. "Even from this administration, I was astounded by such a grotesque, petty and inefficient gesture in its last hours...
...Perhaps. But departing Bush officials shouldn't count their poulets before they've hatched. First off, Roquefort sales to the U.S. represent just 2% - or 400 tons - of the total Roguefort market. The 1998 World Trade Organization ruling that permits Washington to retaliate over the beef ban also limits that sanction to less than $116.8 million in annual European imports to the U.S. - not exactly a sum capable of forcing trade policy capitulation. And that original decision was undermined by a WTO revision last October, which accepted previously disputed scientific evidence from the E.U. on the health risks of hormone...
...Roquefort focus may also backfire because French Roquefort producers say they'll seek financial compensation from France and the E.U., rather than harangue Brussels to lift its beef ban. "The United States is hoping producers will put pressure on Europe," said France's famous anti-globalization crusader and Roquefort producer, José Bové. "But it's clear: at no time will producers put pressure on Europe to open its borders to hormone-treated beef...