More S. Korean Food Rule Changes Sought

South Korea must change its rules regulating a broad range of imported food products to avoid a fight with the United States at the World Trade Organization, a U.S. official said Tuesday.

Just making changes in its regulations governing imported meat products will not be sufficient if Seoul wants to settle an increasingly bitter trade dispute with Washington, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“If the Koreans want assurance that the U.S. won’t go to the WTO, they have to announce changes in red meat and other food categories,” the official said, referring to ongoing talks between the two nations over a meat dispute.

“We can’t solve the problems of the meat industry only to turn around and face the same problems with another industry,” said the official, who is familiar with the talks.

“If the Koreans want to get the threat of WTO off their back, they need to address other concerns,” he said.

The blunt remarks came just days before a trade dispute between the United States and South Korea over Seoul’s regulations on U.S. meat imports reaches a head.

The U.S. meat industry charged last year that Seoul limits its potentially huge markets for U.S.-produced meat through unrealistically short shelf-life rules on meat products and through other measures, such as long customs-clearance times.

American trade officials have warned that unless Korea revises its food codes by month’s end to incorporate longer shelf-life rules, the Clinton Administration will take its case to the WTO, the new global rule-making body that replaced GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) in January.

Besides urging changes in South Korea’s meat import rules, the U.S. trade representative’s office is also concerned about Korea’s shelf-life times on imports of frozen food, canned foods, bottled water and dried and packaged goods.

“We want to solve the red meat industry’s concerns, and we’re pushing very hard on those. But we’re concerned about the whole shelf-life system,” a U.S. official said.

“We won’t sell out one industry for another,” the official said. “The Koreans want assurance from the U.S. that if they solve the meat problem, we won’t go to WTO, but we can’t do that. . . . Just because other industries haven’t filed a complaint, it doesn’t mean we won’t stand up for them.”

U.S. and Korean officials have been holding almost continuous discussions on the dispute since the beginning of the month. A team from Seoul is currently in Washington, and negotiators are expected to meet through the week.

U.S. meat industry representatives met with Administration trade officials last week in what one industry official said was an upbeat meeting.

Industry officials reported after last week’s meeting that South Korea had verbally agreed to replace its shelf-life rules for meat with the more widely used manufacturer’s “sell-by” dates by July, 1996.