BRUSSELS, BELGIUM
\nThe United States has called on the European Union to delay a ban on imports of products driving deforestation, saying it would harm American producers unable to comply, the European Commission said Thursday.
\nThe EU law, set to take effect at the end of December, will bar a vast range of goods \u2014 from coffee to cocoa, soy, timber, palm oil, cattle, printing paper and rubber \u2014 if produced using land that was deforested after December 2020.
\nThe US call adds to concerns voiced by Latin American, Asian and African countries, and from within the EU itself, about the administrative burden the new law places on farmers and the forestry sector. The EU is the second-biggest market for consumption of the targeted products after China.
\nFirms importing the merchandise in question to the 27-nation EU will be responsible for tracking up their supply chains to prove goods did not originate from deforested zones, relying on geolocation and satellite data.
\nAccording to the Financial Times, US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, and Trade Representative Katherine Tai wrote to the European Commission in late May to request a delay.
\nThey argued that the law, adopted in late 2022, posed \u201ccritical challenges\u201d for US producers, and asked for implementation to be postponed \u201cuntil these substantial challenges have been addressed.\u201d \u201cWe can confirm the receipt of the letter and, as always, we will reply in due course,\u201d a commission spokesman told media.
\n\u201cWe are working actively in close collaboration with all stakeholders to prepare its entry into effect,\u201d he said.\u201dThe Commission keeps the situation under constant review and is working hard to ensure that all the conditions are met for smooth implementation,\u201d the spokesman added.
\nWhen asked for comment Thursday on the letter, a US Department of Agriculture (USDA) spokesperson did not confirm the requested delay, but told media it \u201cshares the European Union\u2019s commitment to combating deforestation and appreciates our continued dialogue.\u201d
\nThe spokesperson added that the United States is \u201cconcerned\u201d that the EU law \u201craises several issues related to how the regulation will be implemented and the impact it may have on US producers that engage in sustainable production practices.\u201d
\nThe EU\u2019s environment commissioner Virginijus Sinkevicius in March visited Paraguay, Bolivia and Ecuador to address criticisms of the new law. The bloc has offered technical and financial help for importers to get their tracing systems up to the needed level, responding to complaints that the EU changes will be costly for smaller farms in particular.
\nThe following month Sinkevicius also visited Ivory Coast, the world\u2019s leading cocoa producer, to address similar concerns there. Within the EU itself, the agriculture ministers of around 20 member states \u2014 led by Austria and Finland \u2014 warned in April about the law creating new bureaucratic hurdles for the farm sector, at the risk of harming investment and distorting competition.
\nUnder the law, exporting countries considered high-risk would have at least nine percent of products sent to the EU subjected to checks, with the proportion falling for lower-risk ones.
\nAs it stands, for want of an agreed classification system, the EU will consider all countries as \u201cstandard risk\u201d as of the end of December \u2014 triggering checks on three percent of imports. EU imports are responsible for 16 percent of global deforestation, according to WWF data.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BRUSSELS, BELGIUM The United States has called on the European Union to delay a ban on imports of products driving deforestation, saying it would harm American producers unable to comply, the European Commission said Thursday. The EU law, set to take effect at the end of December, will bar a vast range of goods \u2014 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":413794,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-413763","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n