Word: ustr
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...those 17 products? To "minimize impact" on Americans, says the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. And how does the USTR determine the impact? By throwing the tariff list open to a beagle chorus of special pleading--by U.S. manufacturers eager to get their European competitors barred, by U.S. importers desperate to keep their shipments coming--and to comment by regular folks like Davis, who are caught in the cross fire. There may have once been a time when politics stopped at the water's edge, but today it scarcely taps the brakes...
...first hit list drawn up by the USTR targeted 42 categories of imports, including bath preparations ("other than bath salts") and dolls ("whether or not dressed"). That prompted much yowling from the scores of lobbyists and hobbyists who showed up at a hearing in Washington last month. Importers of feta cheese, a staple of Greek cuisine, implicitly invoked the wrath of the powerful Greek-American lobby and got their product knocked off the list. Pecorino cheese from Italy didn't fare as well; it stayed...
...looking for reciprocity, and one way to get it is nicking them on bananas." The council got pork added to the hit list. The hog farmers pushed to nail Dutch and Danish ham producers. But because those two countries had opposed the E.U.'s banana restrictions, the USTR said...
...might affect them. Though their alligators are raised domestically, most skins are sent to France and Italy for tanning and are reimported as handbags and wallets. "This nation's alligator farmers are hurting bad," moaned Ted Joanen, chairman of the American Alligator Council. He needn't have worried: the USTR went after handbags and wallets with "outer surface of sheeting of plastics." But that outraged high-end department stores such as Bloomingdale's and Neiman Marcus...
...even folks who buy access sometimes have a strong case. "There is no issue that is less attractive for us to go to a trade dispute on," admits USTR spokesman Jay Ziegler, referring to Lindner's political connections. "But the fact is, the banana dispute has evolved into a crucial test" of the enforceability of rulings by the World Trade Organization, which, to no avail, ordered the E.U. to drop its banana restrictions by Jan. 1. Rising concern about the U.S. trade deficit--up 50% in 1998 and expected to rise as much as 80% in 1999--has critics clamoring...