Washington — President Bush will begin a second term barely a year after the United States had its first case of mad cow disease and as Japan and other countries maintain bans on U.S. beef.
But even before the embargoes, Americans began importing more food than they export, raising a broad front of trade issues expected to dominate U.S. farm policy during the next four years.
Only one cow, a Canadian-born Holstein, was confirmed to have been infected. But it only took one to prompt Japan and more than three dozen other countries to refuse U.S. beef, harming export sales and the farm economy they support.
The administration's primary agriculture mission since then has been to get those bans lifted.
But a lot more than beef is at issue. Two years before last December's mad cow case, a surplus of farm exports over imports -- which had been the nation's bulwark against even larger overall trade deficits -- disappeared. At the same time, Congress was passing an election-year farm bill with the most generous government subsidies ever given to growers.
Those two developments will drive newly revived talks on trade liberalization by World Trade Organization members.
Besides finalizing deals to resume U.S. beef exports to Japan and Taiwan, officials are working on reopening U.S. borders for Canadian beef, which was banned in May 2003.
Trade will dominate debate in Washington, D.C., where international disputes over subsidies for U.S. producers could prompt lawmakers to make changes to programs in the 2002 farm bill, although it's more likely the changes would come when Congress begins writing the new farm bill in 2006. Lawmakers expect to begin hearings on the new bill next year.
Third World countries are demanding in the upcoming WTO talks that the United States and Europe end their subsidies, not just those that support farmers but also government help with selling exports.
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