TOI Correspondent from Washington: The United States on Thursday extended its beef about not being able to milk India's dairy sector to New Delhi protecting its agricultural turf.
"1.4 BILLION people in India and we can’t sell them corn!" America's billionaire Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick raged in tv interviews as the Trump team continued to press New Delhi to open up its farm sector to US exports after slapping a 26 per cent tariff on Indian imports ranging from spices to shrimp.
Lutnick's serial rants in multiple tv appearances included gripes about being unable to sell American rice in Asia and US chicken and beef in Europe. "They hate our beef because our beef is beautiful and theirs is weak," Lutnick said, eliciting a cascade of smackdowns on social media, with even Americans pointing out how unhealthy US produce is.
"Anybody who's ever had meal in Europe knows their food is much better. They don't take our chicken and beef because of the amount of antibiotics," one American critic conceded, while an European tourist asserted that "when you first visit US as an outsider one of the first things you will realize is how every ingredient tastes & smells the same much like a sponge."
Indian interlocutors point to a simple reason why New Delhi does not buy American corn: for the most part, India is self-sufficient in corn even though it is grown by small farmers who need ot be protected (US corn comes mostly from huge corporate farms). In some years India is even a net exporter of corn, and in the years it needs to import, it finds 90 per cent of US corn is genetically modified so it sources it from places like Ukraine and Myanmar.
Ditto soy bean, which the US has been trying to unload onto New Delhi, except that India grows enough of it, and in the years it comes up short, it buys from countries such as Togo, Nigeria, and Niger because American soy is mostly genetically modified.
Similar story with American chicken, which much of the world finds abhorrent because of the infusion of antibiotics and growth hormones to fatten them quickly for commercial farming. Trade experts say that since Americans prefer breast meat, Washington has been trying to unload chicken legs on rest of the world -- and has succeeded to degree in India.
But in their effort to back Trump's push for trade balance, US officials made light of such concerns, with Lutnick describing concerns about GM crops and seed modification as "nonsense."
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins dished out even greater tripe in trying to offload US produce. "We don't eat a lot of the pieces of the pig ...the feet, the tongue etc etc. But they do in East Asia...so let us open up those markets!" she proposed.
"1.4 BILLION people in India and we can’t sell them corn!" America's billionaire Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick raged in tv interviews as the Trump team continued to press New Delhi to open up its farm sector to US exports after slapping a 26 per cent tariff on Indian imports ranging from spices to shrimp.
Lutnick's serial rants in multiple tv appearances included gripes about being unable to sell American rice in Asia and US chicken and beef in Europe. "They hate our beef because our beef is beautiful and theirs is weak," Lutnick said, eliciting a cascade of smackdowns on social media, with even Americans pointing out how unhealthy US produce is.
"Anybody who's ever had meal in Europe knows their food is much better. They don't take our chicken and beef because of the amount of antibiotics," one American critic conceded, while an European tourist asserted that "when you first visit US as an outsider one of the first things you will realize is how every ingredient tastes & smells the same much like a sponge."
Indian interlocutors point to a simple reason why New Delhi does not buy American corn: for the most part, India is self-sufficient in corn even though it is grown by small farmers who need ot be protected (US corn comes mostly from huge corporate farms). In some years India is even a net exporter of corn, and in the years it needs to import, it finds 90 per cent of US corn is genetically modified so it sources it from places like Ukraine and Myanmar.
Ditto soy bean, which the US has been trying to unload onto New Delhi, except that India grows enough of it, and in the years it comes up short, it buys from countries such as Togo, Nigeria, and Niger because American soy is mostly genetically modified.
Similar story with American chicken, which much of the world finds abhorrent because of the infusion of antibiotics and growth hormones to fatten them quickly for commercial farming. Trade experts say that since Americans prefer breast meat, Washington has been trying to unload chicken legs on rest of the world -- and has succeeded to degree in India.
But in their effort to back Trump's push for trade balance, US officials made light of such concerns, with Lutnick describing concerns about GM crops and seed modification as "nonsense."
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins dished out even greater tripe in trying to offload US produce. "We don't eat a lot of the pieces of the pig ...the feet, the tongue etc etc. But they do in East Asia...so let us open up those markets!" she proposed.
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