White House pushing Sir Keir Starmer to make concessions on food standards

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/40891725

White House pushing Sir Keir Starmer to make concessions on food standards

Donald Trump is demanding American chlorinated chicken be sold in British supermarkets.

The White House is pushing Sir Keir Starmer to make concessions on food standards in order to revive a transatlantic tech partnership that drastically collapsed on Tuesday.

Jamieson Greer, the US trade envoy, wants Britain to accept hormone-treated chicken and beef, a term he was not able to achieve when the wider US-UK trade deal was first signed in May.

“He is seeking to use the tech partnership as leverage on trade deal concessions he still wants but that didn’t get the first round,” a source close to the negotiations told The Telegraph.

The US pulled the tech prosperity agreement over complaints Britain’s Online Safety Act would police American AI companies. Washington is using this complaint in order to secure fresh compromises in its trade deal with London, The Telegraph understands.

Insiders say the tech agreement collapsed in part because of the absence of an ambassador to Washington, a post which has remained vacant since Lord Mandelson was fired in September over his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein.

  • Soggy@lemmy.worldEnglish
    716·
    1 day ago

    The USDA has banned hormones and steroids since the 50s and like 5% of chicken gets the (perfectly safe) chlorine rinse. European countries use the same rinse on leafy vegetables, they just banned it on poultry because they thought it would make processors complacent.

    • potatopotato@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      6·
      1 day ago

      You raise good points, though I think the issue stands that our processors and farmers are extremely complacent to the point of being negligent. I can’t exactly fault Europe for not wanting any part of that, they generally care much more about food quality than we do here.

      • Soggy@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        20 hours ago

        Regulations are only as good as their enforcement. The US has pretty good food safety laws (the discrepancies with the EU tend to be our “prove it’s bad” rather than “prove it’s not bad” stance on common-use ingredients and additives.) particularly with labeling. We don’t have fresh raw cheeses because we decided the best Brie wasn’t worth occasional listeria outbreaks.

    • ayyy@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      36·
      24 hours ago

      Noooo we’re not looking for facts here, it’s a white supremicist corclejerk!