Hendrik Diertonck, a second generation butcher who, as he describes it, has become “world famous in Belgium” for his curated local beef, believes that Europe's cattle lead to diverse and delicious abbreviations that reveal European consumer price values.
“They want to be hormone-free, grass-fed,” said Mr. Diertonck recently when he cut steaks in a bloody hacking block in his restaurant, which was awarded a Michelin star, with a Michelin star, which withdraws to the butcher's shop that his father began in the 1970s. “You want to know where it comes from.”
Strict food regulations of the European Union, including a ban on hormone, rule Mr. Denteronck's work. And these rules could become a trade war point. The Trump government argues that American meat that is generated without similar regulations is better – and wants Europe to buy more of it and other American farm products.
“They hate our beef because our beef is beautiful,” said Howard Lutnick, the trade secretary, in a television interview last month. “And yours is weak.”
Apart from questions of beauty and strength, the administration is right in one thing: European political decision -makers are not interested in allowing more hormonic American steaks and burger to the European Union.
The further opening of the European market for American farmers is only one question on a laundry list of inquiries from the Trump team. American negotiators also want Europe to buy more American gas and trucks, change their consumption taxes and wake their digital regulations.
Trade officials within the European Union are willing to make many concessions to avert a painful and lengthy trade war and to avert higher tariffs. They offered to drop auto tariffs to zero, buy more gas and increase military purchases. The negotiators even proposed that they could buy more agricultural products such as soybeans.
But the Europeans have their limits, and the treated T-bones and chicken breasts are washed by acid.
“The EU standards, especially if they refer to food, health and security, are sacrosunched -that is not part of the negotiation and will never be,” said Olof Gill, spokesman for the European Commission, the EU administration with no time. “This is a red line.”
It is not clear how seriously the Americans push with the urging of agricultural products such as beef and chicken. But the topic has appeared repeatedly. When US official presented a trade agreement with Great Britain on Thursday, beef was part of the agreement, for example.
According to the UK, the deal would simply make it cheaper for the Americans to export more hormone-free beef into the country, and would not weaken the British health and security rules that are similar in the EU
When it comes to the European Union, the United States can already export a large amount of hormone -free beef without putting tariffs, so that an equivalent business would hardly help to help American farmers.
However, diplomats and European civil servants have repeatedly insisted that there is no scope to reduce these health and security standards. And when it comes to meat -related trade restrictions, there is very little. For example, chicken faces relatively high tariffs, and there is a limited appetite to lower these prices.
This is because Europe protects both its eating culture and its farms.
Where America usually has massive agricultural companies, Europeans have maintained a more robust network of smaller family businesses. The 27-nation block has about nine million farms compared to around two million in the United States.
Subsidies and trade restrictions help to keep the Europe's agricultural system intact. The European Union distributes a large part of their budget to the supporting farmers, and a mixture of tariffs and odds limits competition in sensitive areas. The EU tariffs for agricultural products are around 11 percent, based on estimates of the world trade organization, although they vary greatly depending on the product.
And the block could place higher tariffs on US agricultural goods if trade negotiations fail. The list of products that could be published on Thursday include beef and pork as well as many soybean products and bourbon.
But it's not just tariffs that limit European imports of American food. Strict health and security standards also hold many foreign products to European food shelves.
Take beef. In contrast to the United States, in which cattle are often collected on large feed slots with the use of hormones on large feed slots, Mr. Denteronck and other European farmers are prohibited. European security officers have concluded that they cannot rule out health risks for people from hormonic beef.
The rules also fit by Mr. Denteronck. The lack of hormones leads to a less homogeneous product. “Every terroir has its taste,” he explains, describing the unique “mouthfeel” of the West Flemish red cow, which he absorbs on his farm on the Belgian coast.
But the management of beef without hormones is more expensive. And American exporters have to adhere to hormone restrictions if they send steaks, hamburgers or dairy products to the EU countries, of which European farmers are only fair. Otherwise, imports that are produced using cheaper methods that European farmers can get out of business could.
“We cannot accept import products that do not meet our production standards,” said Dominique Chargé, a cattle builder from the west of France, who also represents President of La Coopération Agricole, a national federation, the French agricultural associations.
The result is that the United States do not sell much beef to Europe. For US farmers, it is more economical to sell in markets that enable hormone cattle.
A common American complaint is that European health standards are more about preference than actual health.
American scientists have minimal the risks of hormone use in cows. And although EU officials and consumers often entertain in America's “chlorinated chickens”, this rallying scream is somewhat outdated. American farmers have been using a Wessig -like acidity and not a chlorine for years to rinse poultry and kill potential pathogens.
Some studies in Europe have pointed out that such treatments are not a replacement for increasing a chicken in a way that makes it pathogen -free from the start. American scientists have come to the conclusion that the rinses do their work and are not harmful to humans.
“I don't know that it is really about science,” said Dianna Bourassa, a microbiologist specializing in poultry at Auburn University. “According to my microbiological opinion, there are no health effects.”
From the perspective of European farmers, however, whether the health risks are real is not the point. As long as European voters are against chemically treated chicken and hormone beef beef, farmers in Europe cannot apply these agricultural techniques.
“When they talk to our farmers, it is about fairness,” said Pieter Hangle, member of the Executive Board of a Belgian Peasant Union, Boerenbond. “The political framework we start is completely different, and these problems are mostly completely outside the farmers' hands.”
And European consumers seem to support EU food and agricultural rules.
Last year, farmer protested more beef imports from South American countries, partly because of concerns that the cows could be applied with a growth hormone. A trading business from the Obama era died partly thanks to the popular anger about “chlorine chicken” (“chlorhünchen”, to mocking Germans).
The surveys of public opinion of the EU has proposed that guidelines that promote agriculture and farmers are very popular. In a survey of 2020, almost 90 percent of Europeans in the entire block of the idea agreed that agricultural imports should only “enter the EU if their production has complied with the EU environmental and animal welfare standards”.
In Europe, including Mr. Denteronck's butcher's shop and farm, there was a value on the old -fashioned, small way of doing things. Mr. Denteronck buys an American beef for customers who ask about it – it is easy to cook, he said – but it is a small part of the business.
“I like the American beef very much, but I don't like it too much,” said Mr. Denteronck and explains that the beef that offers its European suppliers is diverse, like a good wine. “For me it is about keeping traditions alive.”