Sanctions Readied on U.S. Walnuts, Dried Fruits : Europeans Poised to Battle in Beef Flap

European foreign ministers on Monday approved a plan to impose heavy sanctions on some U.S. imports if the Bush Administration fails to move quickly to end a stubborn trade dispute over hormone-treated meat from America.

Ministers of the 12-nation European Community agreed to slap duties on imports of U.S. walnuts and dried fruit but indefinitely delayed implementing the tariffs to allow more time to settle the conflict.

“We hope the new North American Administration will adopt a more intelligent attitude,” said Spanish Foreign Minister Francisco Fernandez Ordonez.

He said President George Bush is “a free trader. I hope he will honor that name.”

U.S. officials expressed satisfaction that the community delayed imposing the duties.

“We want to make every effort to first contain and then resolve this dispute, and this decision . . . is clearly a positive step in that direction,” read a statement from the U.S. mission to the trading bloc.

But the statement also said officials were “very concerned” about the ministers’ decision to approve a list of products “which could eventually be the target of . . . counter-retaliation.”

The EC on Jan. 1 banned imports of U.S. meat from cattle treated with growth hormones, an action affecting about $100 million worth of beef and beef byproducts. European officials contend the hormones pose a health risk, a claim the United States disputes. American farmers use the hormones to fatten cattle.

The United States immediately retaliated by setting about $100 million worth of higher tariffs on a variety of EC products. including boneless beef and pork hams.

The foreign ministers approved their own retaliatory measures, which would lift duties to 100% on imports of U.S. produced, unshelled walnuts and dried fruit, including apricots, peaches, prunes, apples, papayas and pears.

The EC, the trading group’s executive body, had asked the ministers to put the countermeasures into effect on Feb. 1.

But Fernandez Ordonez said the ministers refused to set a date because they did not want “to diminish room for maneuvering we have with the new Administration.”

Still, he said, the ministers decided “we shall not sit back and do nothing” after the United States slapped higher duties on some European goods.

EC spokesman Nico Wegter said, “We don’t like retaliation.”

The ministers called on the Bush Administration to suspend the U.S. retaliatory duties while both sides try “to reach an amicable settlement to the dispute.”

They said in a statement they would review the situation at a meeting Feb. 20.

“The countermeasures will be put into effect unless there is satisfactory progress in (the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) or in bilateral negotiations with the United States,” they said.

The Common Market will ask the 96-nation GATT at a meeting Feb. 8 to declare the U.S. duties in violation of the rules of the free trade group.

The United States has urged the Europeans to let GATT’s Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade, also known as the Standards Code Committee, decide the scientific validity of the ban. But the EC has insisted that GATT should consider only whether the community has the right to impose such a ban to protect consumer health.

There has been some indication the community is easing its stand. Frans Andriessen, the EC’s top trading official, told the European Parliament last week that scientific factors could be considered. But Wegter denied that represented a change in position.

Both sides have agreed to allow sanctioned products that were in transit before Jan. 1 to enter their borders through Jan. 31.

The disputed goods represent a small portion of the estimated $166 billion in U.S.-Common Market trade last year.