Cheese war ends. Everyone wins.
Our long international nightmare is over. The U.S. and EU have reached an agreement to end the world’s most entertaining trade dispute, which began with George W. Bush’s lame-duck decision to raise import duties on Roquefort cheese: The new US administration has now agreed to drop the import duty threat, due to come into force ...
Our long international nightmare is over. The U.S. and EU have reached an agreement to end the world's most entertaining trade dispute, which began with George W. Bush's lame-duck decision to raise import duties on Roquefort cheese:
The new US administration has now agreed to drop the import duty threat, due to come into force this week, and which would have affected to a lesser degree a range of EU products, from truffles and mineral water to chewing gum.
Our long international nightmare is over. The U.S. and EU have reached an agreement to end the world’s most entertaining trade dispute, which began with George W. Bush’s lame-duck decision to raise import duties on Roquefort cheese:
The new US administration has now agreed to drop the import duty threat, due to come into force this week, and which would have affected to a lesser degree a range of EU products, from truffles and mineral water to chewing gum.
Under the provisional deal, the EU will keep the hormone-treated beef ban, which it claims poses a health threat, but will quadruple imports of non-hormone treated American beef in four years.
Cheese farmer and lefty icon Jose Bove (above) described the deal as evidence that the U.S. has “accepted that health is more important than trade,” even though this is actually an expansion of trade and between all this beef and cheese, I’m not sure who’s getting healthy.
But in any event, kudos to negotiators for ensuring that neither American populism nor European ludditism will bring down the transatlantic alliance. Time for a celebratory cheeseburger.
JACQUES DEMARTHON/AFP/Getty Images
Joshua Keating was an associate editor at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @joshuakeating
More from Foreign Policy


Is Cold War Inevitable?
A new biography of George Kennan, the father of containment, raises questions about whether the old Cold War—and the emerging one with China—could have been avoided.


So You Want to Buy an Ambassadorship
The United States is the only Western government that routinely rewards mega-donors with top diplomatic posts.


Can China Pull Off Its Charm Offensive?
Why Beijing’s foreign-policy reset will—or won’t—work out.


Turkey’s Problem Isn’t Sweden. It’s the United States.
Erdogan has focused on Stockholm’s stance toward Kurdish exile groups, but Ankara’s real demand is the end of U.S. support for Kurds in Syria.