Cheesy Trade War Was Prologue to 'Buy American' Debate

(MoneyWatch)  Given the fierce disagreement over whether bailout money from taxpayers should have a "Buy American" provision, I thought I'd return to one of the Bush Administration's more bizarre midnight regulations, which I left out of my previous post.

On January 13, the administration tripled the tariff on Roquefort cheese, bringing it to 300 percent. Other European products, such as pears, truffles and mineral water, got their tariffs upped to 100 percent, but none got hit as hard as Roquefort.

The move was supposedly retaliation for the EU's ongoing ban on U.S. beef containing artificial growth hormones, but many interpreted it as the administration taking revenge against "cheese-eating surrender monkeys."

The makers of the smelly cheese were none too happy with the new tariff. French farmers protested at the U.S. embassy in Paris, and one member of parliament proposed slapping a tariff on Coca-Cola in retaliation. The president of the region that produces Roquefort cheese even sent a free sample to President Obama -- a White House-warming present as well as a gentle nudge to reverse the last-minute tariff.

This is exactly the kind of escalating trade war that some fear will result if public infrastructure projects in the economic bailout plan are required to use only U.S.-made iron and steel.

On the other side, Public Citizen argues that government procurement rules are domestic issues that shouldn't appear in trade agreements.

I'm not sure about government procurement rules, but governments should definitely maintain autonomy when it comes to setting food safety policy. France should be able to ban hormone-fed beef if it wants to without fear of blatant attempts to shut their cheese out of our market. Alas, the WTO disagrees, so unless Roquefort tariffs reach the top of Obama's agenda some time soon, it looks like the 300 percent tariff will stay.