The Obama administration is actively considering the re-imposition of tariffs on a range of South African exports worth billions of rand including cars, ferromanganese, citrus and wine, unless SA moves rapidly to open its market to US chicken, beef and pork.

 

"Without swift action, SA risks losing important tariff benefits under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa)," deputy assistant US trade representative Trevor Kincaid said on Thursday. US and South African trade, agricultural and veterinary officials, including SA’s special envoy on Agoa issues, ambassador Faizel Ismail, are due to meet in Washington on Monday.

 

"A resolution on unfair barriers to US exports is urgently needed, particularly given the clear Congressional mandate in the recent Agoa renewal legislation," Mr Kincaid said, reiterating the message delivered to Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies by US trade representative Michael Froman at the Agoa forum in Gabon last month.

 

Frustration is mounting in the US Congress and the administration over what is seen as SA’s unjustified and discriminatory use of food safety and animal health regulations — technically known as sanitary and phytosanitary measures — to keep American farm products out of its market.

 

Agoa gives African countries privileged access to the US market on a non-reciprocal basis but does require them to make "continual progress" towards opening their markets to American goods.

 

When Agoa came up for renewal this year, US agribusiness, led by the poultry industry, pressed Congress to see that SA complied with this condition by threatening to exclude it or limit its benefits.

 

Congress responded by ordering the office of the US trade representative to conduct a special review of SA’s Agoa eligibility and, if necessary, to re-impose duties on one or more of its exports to the US. The review is nearing completion.

 

Some progress was made in Paris in June when SA undertook to lift 15-year-old anti-dumping duties on an agreed quantum of US bone-in chicken portions. However, this has yet to be implemented.

 

The issue is, in any event, moot at this point.

 

SA has banned all poultry imports from the US because of an outbreak of avian influenza in the American west.

 

The US says the blanket ban is inconsistent with World Organisation for Animal Health standards and that SA should allow imports from unaffected regions as it does on imports from the European Union.

 

"US poultry representatives negotiated an agreement on exports with their South African counterparts in good faith, and while I remain hopeful that this agreement will be implemented, I am concerned that we are not seeing enough progress and that market barriers persist," said Senator Chris Coons, the Delaware Democrat who with Senator Johnny Isakson, a Republican of Georgia, has championed the cause of US chicken exporters.

 

"I know the US trade representative takes this seriously and Congress has made clear that the US should not allow other countries to enjoy trade benefits under Agoa while actively undermining our trading interests," Mr Coons said.

 

US beef remains excluded from the South African market as part of a ban on all US ruminant products after an animal in Washington state was found with mad cow disease in 2003. The US trade representative has asked for a copy of a June 26 Cabinet decree that would supposedly start the process of lifting the ban, but has yet to receive one.

 

In addition, says a US department of agriculture report, SA has "laid out a very stringent set of conditions for US access".

 

A June 2013 regulation on porcine respiratory and reproductive syndrome shut US pork out of SA.

 

SA has since approved a list of cuts that may be imported from the US, but it does not include those of most interest to US exports.

 

The US side is hoping that logjams on these issues are the result of overzealousness on the part of officials at the technical level rather than political considerations.

 

The US department of agriculture values the US exports lost as a result of the SA poultry, beef and pork bans at $120m.

 

SA’s top five Agoa exports to the US last year were worth $1.5bn. Cars topped the list ($1.3bn), followed by ferromanganese ($183m), industrial fatty alcohols ($46m), oranges ($41m) and wine ($31m).