Some European Foods Face 100% U.S. Tariff : Retaliatory Duties Will Be Imposed on Sunday if Common Market Bans Hormone-Treated Beef

WASHINGTON —  The Reagan Administration said Tuesday that, if the Common Market goes ahead with its planned ban on American beef from animals treated with growth-inducing hormones, the United States will impose trade sanctions on a number of European food products.

The retaliatory move, which will take effect on Sunday, was announced by U.S. Trade Representative Clayton K. Yeutter after talks aimed at reaching an accord on the issue hit an impasse. U.S. officials said that they do not expect the Europeans to change their minds between now and next weekend.

$100 Million in Lost Sales

The sanctions will be in the form of prohibitive 100% tariffs on about $100-million worth of food imports from Europe--about the same amount that U.S. officials say American meat producers will lose in sales when the European import ban is imposed.

The list of products includes fresh and frozen beef, Danish hams, Italian canned tomatoes, French cheese, processed coffee, low-alcohol beverages, fruit juices and pet food. The tariffs, or additional duties, will go into effect at 12:01 a.m. Sunday.

Although the tariffs will apply to only a small proportion of the total $150-billion-a-year trade between the two partners, the move is expected to exacerbate U.S.-European trade frictions, which already are high because of Europe’s refusal to phase out agricultural subsidies.

The action was the latest salvo in a two-year-long fight between the two trading partners that trade experts fear could escalate rapidly into a full-scale trade war.

Europe already has vowed to counter-retaliate if Washington goes ahead with its sanctions--by raising duties on honey, walnuts, canned corn and dried fruit. And the United States is considering further measures in return--possibly even banning all European meat.

But the outcome at this point is uncertain.

Trade experts were also worried that the dispute could impede efforts by the two sides to reach agreement on the broader issue of phasing out all trade-distorting agricultural subsidies by early in the next century. That issue has been holding up global trade-liberalization negotiations in the 96-country Uruguay Round talks.

Deadlock on Subsidies

U.S. and European officials have been hoping to hammer out a compromise on the broader farm subsidy issue by April. Earlier this month, a U.S.-European deadlock over the subsidy issue prevented the world’s trade ministers from agreeing on an agenda for the Uruguay Round.

The latest dispute has been raging for two years. The Common Market approved the ban a year ago but delayed it until Jan. 1, 1989, after Washington threatened to retaliate. The sanctions the United States was set to impose were the same as those announced Tuesday.

The Common Market has said it is acting because consumer groups in Europe, primarily in West Germany, have complained that using hormones to stimulate growth in animals constitutes a health hazard. Other European suppliers, such as Australia, have stopped using the drugs.

But U.S. officials insist that there is no scientific evidence to support allegations that the hormones are harmful to health and charge that the European ban is a thinly veiled effort to shut out American exports--a stance that Yeutter reiterated again Tuesday.

Balks at Scientific Panel

The United States has offered several times to submit the issue to an international panel of scientists, but the Common Market has refused. American officials assert that most meat animals here are weaned off all hormones long before slaughter and thus contain no residue.

Yeutter said in a statement Tuesday that the Food and Drug Administration has found that daily production of hormones in humans is far higher than the minuscule levels left in meat from treated animals, and meat from untreated animals may have higher levels.

The United States permits only five major growth-inducing hormones for use in meat animals--testosterone, estradiol, progesterone, zeranol and trenbolone acetate. A sixth, diethylstilbestrol, also known as DES, was found to be unsafe and was banned long ago.

Pet Food Exempted

Tuesday’s action was taken despite a move by the Common Market earlier this month to narrow the impact of its ban by exempting hormone-enhanced meat that is used for pet food. Washington reduced the scope of its retaliatory sanctions after that move but did not rescind them.

The 100% tariffs that the United States plans to impose after midnight Saturday effectively will double the wholesale cost of the European food products in America, making them prohibitively expensive for most consumers here.

Leslye Arsht, a deputy White House press secretary, said that, despite the increasing tensions between the two sides, “there is a mechanism for resolving them, and we have no reason to believe this one won’t be resolved also.”

Staff writer James Gerstenzang in Los Angeles contributed to this story.