Hendrick Dierendonk, a second-generation butcher who became “world-famous in Belgium” because of his curated local beef, believes that it will bring about a variety of delicious cuts that European consumers praise in the European way of raising European cows.
“They want to have grass that is hormone free,” Dielendonk recently explained, cutting steaks in the bloody chopping blocks of a Michelin-starred restaurant. “They want to know where it came from.”
Strict European Union food regulations, including a hormone ban, govern Dielendonk's work. And these rules could turn into fixed points in trade wars. The Trump administration argues that American meat produced without similar regulations is better, and hopes Europe will buy more of it and buy other American produce.
“They hate our beef because our beef is beautiful,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said in an interview aired last month. “And theirs is weak.”
Aside from the issue of beauty and strength, the administration is right about one thing. European policymakers are not keen to allow the European Union to have more hormone-raised American steaks and burgers.
Opening the European market even further to American farmers is one question on the laundry list of requests from the Trump team. American negotiators also hope that Europe will buy more American gas and trucks, change sales tax and weaken digital regulations.
Trade officials within the European Union want to make many concessions to avoid a painful and prolonged trade war and avoid higher tariffs. They offered to drop the car's tariffs to zero, buy more gas and increase military purchases. Negotiators suggest that they can purchase more specific produce, such as soybeans.
However, Europeans have their limits, including American-treated T-bone and acid-washed chicken breast.
“EU standards are sacred, especially since they relate to food, health and safety. They are not part of the negotiations and will never happen,” said Olof Gill, a spokesman for the EU's administration, at a recent press conference. “That's a red line.”
It is not clear how serious Americans are about promoting agricultural products like beef and chicken. However, the topic has been rising repeatedly. For example, when US officials announced a trade deal with the UK on Thursday, beef was part of the agreement.
However, according to the UK, the deal simply makes Americans cheaper to export more hormone-free beef to the country, and does not undermine UK health and safety regulations similar to those in the EU.
As for the European Union, comparable trades would be little useful to help American farmers, as the US can already export large quantities of hormone-free beef without facing tariffs.
However, diplomats and European officials have repeatedly argued that there is no undulations to lower these health and safety standards. And there is little more broadly about meat-related trade restrictions. For example, chicken faces relatively high tariffs and the appetite to lower those fees is limited.
That's because Europe protects both its food culture and its farms.
If America tends to have large-scale agricultural businesses, Europeans maintain a more robust network of small family operations. The bloc of 27 countries has farms of around 2 million in the United States, but about 9 million.
Subsidies and trade restrictions help keep the European agricultural system intact. The European Union allocates a large portion of its budget to support farmers, limiting competition in sensitive areas where the mix of tariffs and allocations is limited. EU tariffs on agricultural products vary widely from product to product, based on the World Trade Organization estimates, but overall is around 11%.
Additionally, if trade negotiations are made, the bloc could place higher tariffs on US agricultural products. The list of products issued Thursday that could face retaliation includes beef and pork, along with many soy products and bourbon.
But it's not just tariffs that restrict European imports of American food. Strict health and safety standards maintain many foreign products from European grocery shelves.
Take the beef. Dierendonck and other European farmers are banned from using growth stimulants, unlike the US, where cows are often raised in large feedlots using hormones. European safety officials conclude that human health risks cannot be eliminated from hormone-raised beef.
For Dierendonck, the rules also fit European preferences. A hormone deficiency results in a non-homogeneous product. “Every terroir has that flavour,” he explains, explaining the unique “mouth atmosphere” of the red cows of western Flanders raised on farms on the Belgian coast.
However, farmed beef without hormones is more expensive. And American exporters must comply with hormonal restrictions when sending steaks, burgers and dairy products to EU countries. Otherwise, imports produced using cheaper methods could cause European farmers to go out of business.
“The French cooperatives are the president of La Cooperation Agricole, a national federation representing French agricultural cooperatives,” said Dominique Charge, a co-farmer in western France, who is also the president of La Cooperation Agricole, a national federation representing French agricultural cooperatives.
As a result, the US does not sell much beef to Europe. It makes more economical sense for U.S. farmers to sell hormone-raised cattle to markets that allow them.
One of the frequent complaints in America is that European health standards are more about preference than actual health.
American scientists have minimized the risk of hormone use in cows. And while EU officials and consumers frequently snatch American “chlorinated chickens,” their cries are a bit outdated. For many years, American farmers have used acids like vinegar, not chlorine, to rinse chicken and kill potential pathogens.
Several European studies suggest that such treatments are not an alternative to raising chickens in pathogen-free ways from the start. American scientists have concluded that rinsing is doing its job and is not harmful to humans.
“I don't know that's really about science,” said Diana Bulassa, a microbiologist specializing in poultry at Auburn University. “In my microbiological opinion, it has no health impact.”
However, from the perspective of European farmers, whether health risks are genuine or not is added to the point. As long as European voters oppose chemically processed chicken and hormonally treated beef, European farmers cannot use those agricultural techniques.
“When you talk to our farmers, it's about fairness,” explained Peter Werhelst, a member of the executive committee of Borenbond, the executive committee of the Belgian farmers' union. “The policy framework we start with is completely different, and these issues are almost completely out of the hands of farmers.”
And it appears that European consumers support the EU food and agriculture regulations.
Last year's farmer protests have largely opposed the importation of more beef from South American countries, but some have added to concerns that cattle may be raised with growth hormone. Obama-era trade contracts have died in part due to popular rage over “chlorine chicken” (“Krollhyunchen”, the ridiculous German).
EU polls suggest that policies promoting agriculture and farmers are extremely popular. In the 2020 vote, in the face-to-face vote across the bloc, almost 90% of Europeans agreed to the idea that agricultural imports should only enter the EU if they comply with EU environmental and animal welfare standards.
In Europe, policymakers and farmers agreed that traditional small-scale ways of doing things are valuable to include Mr. Dielendonkku's slaughter and farming. Dierendonck buys American beef for customers who want it. Cooking is easy, he said, but that's just a part of the business.
“I really like American beef, but I don't really like it,” Deelendonk said. “For me, it's about keeping tradition alive.”
