Washington Insider-- Tuesday

By DTN's Washington Insider

Here's a quick monitor of Washington farm and trade policy issues from DTN's well-placed observer.

Europe Still Refining TTIP Negotiating Points

Members of the European Parliament's International Trade Committee are calling on their negotiators to keep intact Europe's system of Geographical Indications and protect its "sensitive" agricultural products from tariff elimination during discussions with their U.S. counterparts regarding the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) trade deal. Those requirements were two of a number of recommendations that the European Commission will consider before providing a directive to its TTIP negotiators.

Among other things, the committee's report tells EU negotiators to make every effort to insert a "safeguard clause" reserving the right to close markets for specific products in the event of import surges that threaten to cause serious harm to domestic food production.

For the most part, each side has been more open about what it is demanding of the other than what each is willing to give up. Certainly a trade deal that contains a large number of products exempted from tariff elimination won't be viewed as providing much improvement over the current trading environment. Until both the United States and EU show willingness to lower tariffs on a significant number of "sensitive" products, the TTIP trade deal may be destined to result "only" in a better coordination of customs rules. In the end, however, that would be no small outcome.

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House Appears Closer to Approving Trade Promotion Bill

House members who support a fast-track trade bill are expressing optimism that the House will pass the measure, sending it to President Obama's desk for his anticipated signature. Informal vote counts show more than 200 Republicans support the measure, with about 25 House Democrats also likely to vote for the bill, formally known as Trade Promotion Authority. With House membership now at 433 (two short of a full complement), proposed legislation requires 217 votes for approval. The Senate already has passed the TPA bill.

The battle lines between the business lobby, which supports TPA, and the environmental, labor and other groups that oppose it were drawn early in the legislative process. If anything, opposition has become more focused in recent months.

In spite of the public optimism, House Republican leaders are unlikely to bring the measure to the floor this week, with some Hill contacts saying the leadership is still gathering support for TPA. However the bill could arrive on the House floor next week, where the vote now appears likely to go in the president's favor.

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Washington Insider: Fighting Food Slanders in China

Nowadays, the internet seems to have generated a new capacity for food criticisms, including those that go well beyond reality. This is a phenomenally popular sport in the United States where food elitists and others are often found more credible to many consumers than scientists and where observers sometimes take delight in raging against food components as common as the nitrogen in our atmosphere. Others invent ugly descriptors to demean perfectly nutritious products for reasons that are far from clear, but certainly can be damaging.

However, critics in China may be outpacing our own. Restaurant operator KFC told the press Monday it has filed suit against three companies in China whose social media accounts spread false claims. Among these, said company officials, was the charge that KFC chickens have six wings and eight legs. KFC has more than 4,600 restaurants in China.

KFC says its push against product-slander is part of a government campaign to clean up rumors on social media. It claims that one of the best-known "fake rumors" was that its chickens are genetically modified to have many wings and legs. The company is demanding 1.5 million yuan ($242,000) and an apology from each of three companies that operated accounts on the popular mobile phone app WeChat and is seeking an immediate stop to their claims. Shanghai Xuhui District People's Court has accepted the case, according to a press officer.

KFC's China CEO, Qu Cuirong, told the press that it is hard for companies to protect brands against rumors because of the difficulties in collecting evidence. "But the stepped-up efforts by the government in recent years to purify the online environment, as well as some judicial interpretations, have offered us confidence and weapons," she said.

The campaign apparently focuses on online rumors, negativity and unruliness. However, some critics worry that the campaign is largely aimed at suppressing criticism of the ruling Communist Party.

Well, it may be possible for China to shut down some of the more outrageous criticisms of food products, and we might wish them well in that effort, but at least a middling dose of skepticism of the odds of success seems in order since it has been impossible to fight food slander in the West.

While food critics here don't focus much on the number of legs or wings, they do fume about GMOs and have found that they can earnestly question the safety and healthfulness of food products without fear of censure. They even can promote bizarre nostrums and remedies that lead to profitable books and lecture series while promoting policies that could threaten future food availability for many of the world's people.

We, and the Chinese, also need to continue to worry more than a little about government efforts to stamp out food slanders but which could prove worse than the slanders themselves, especially as food industries become more commercial and less home-centered, and, as people move further away from the actual food preparation process.

Most likely, the only answer to food slanders is more and better food and nutrition information, including that regarding growing global needs, Washington Insider believes.

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(GH/CZ)

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