International Business / The Pacific

U.S. Formally Challenges Beef Import Ban: The U.S. filed papers in Geneva with the World Trade Organization accusing the European Union of practicing an unfair trade barrier in banning imports of beef treated with hormones, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Trade Representative said. The ban, instituted seven years ago, costs the U.S. cattle industry an estimated $100 million a year. The WTO took up the issue, but it was blocked by the EU. The U.S. will try to advance the issue again on May 20, U.S. trade representative spokeswoman Diane Wildman said. Under world-trade rules, the target of a complaint has the right to block a case once but not twice. The U.S. challenge, long in the works, came one day before U.S. Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman was to confer with EU Farm Minister Franz Fischler. Separately, the European Commission, seeking to defuse growing tension between Britain and its EU partners, proposed relaxing the ban on British beef exports by exempting three cattle products.