As far as i am aware all beef reared using growth hormones was banned, not just the USA. You could also not take it across some borders over here which affected our farmers as well. If i recall rightly, but i may be mistaken.
They need to be approved. Makes sense to me cause there could be some unhappy people putting up 4 letter words.
Yep my receipt said it had to be approved. Here's a thought: We stop giving growth hormones to the beef destined for the EU market and end the whole silly argument. Nah, let's force them to eat the hormones. edit: I see the comments are now up on their site. Hopefully they will make a difference.
Thanks. As a call to arms, I linked this to a Moto Guzzi V11 forum. I'm sure many there will respond.
Apparently this ain't the first time this has been threatened. An old riding buddy of mine and a fellow KTMtalker whom I sent this tariff alert to today just shot this back at me from a 1999 article in a Minnesota based periodical,...scroll down a bit: http://www.motorbyte.com/mmm/pages/allthenews/news26.htm Not by any means does this lessen this attempt,...but it would seem the same action was unsuccessful 10 years ago.
And a more recent AMA press release http://www.roadracingworld.com/news/article/?lnk=rss&article=35125
total and utter non sense ..... !!! The tarrif should be introduced only to promote the sale of domestic product...since there are few..if any domestic offroad motorcycle manufactures...who the hell are they trying to protect..?? beef and hormones is another issue altogether.....I can wrap my brain around that....promoting domestic product Motorcycle dealerships with euro brands will suffer...and the other dealers with japanese brands down the street..will go unscathed....makes no sense....
Non-USA people are encouraged to comment too. They are/were also expecting comments from companies and people from outside the United States, but when I last talked to them on Thursday they were not aware of any comments on this issue from outside the USA. If anyone is reading this that will be affected somehow - dealers in Canada, Canadian bike owners that might have a tough time getting parts in North Aamerica, Husqvarna Italy, or other people in Europe (KTM, Gas Gas, etc) - please comment - this is the time.... Any Europe companies or other people from Europe reading this? Your comments would be most welcomed It would be nice to be able to buy European bikes in the future in the USA.
AMA letter In case this has not been posted Halls sent this to me. If you follow the link at the bottom there is a pdf scan of what was sent if anyone is interested.
Seems someone has figured out a way getting a direct link to the comment page (hope it works for multiple people) http://www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/component/main?main=SubmitComment&o=09000064807cd168 Kudos to Halls cycle once again.
i think i posted about this in TT but heres my take on it anyhow; the beef issue is a complete (pardon the pun) load of bull, most europeans will not (knowingly) buy meat with any sort of hormone in it. we have had enough food scares with BSE, foot and mouth disease etc that people are hyper vigilant about these kind of issues. The ban is not US related but relates to any country that uses hormones. The idea that there is such a thing as *fair* trade in the world is laughable, most agriculture (including europe) is subsidised or grant aided to a certain degree. There is no simple like for like deal here imo. I believe the idea of the tariff here is to make a token effort at showing that something is being done and perhaps targetting a very small section of your country. Firstly offroaders (surely a minority) then offroaders on european machinery (a minority within a minority). From a business perspective (ktm aside) the US is a huge potential market for most of these manufacturers but I am unsure if right now if any european manufacturer is making a profit selling in the US? perhaps the home side of the business is subsidising the drive to gain market share abroad. so in the short term this could force a manufacturers hand in a direction they were already considering, who knows. personally however if i was (as a rider) going to be affected by this it would upset me hugely, as i love huskys but couldnt justify spending twice the price of another bike on one. my 2 cent (.02 euro)
i think i have successfully killed the thread sent off something to the link given just to give a non US opinion
Please don't worry about repeating yourself. Internet is a big place and while TT and other forums are great places people may miss things - especially something this important. "Written communication is difficult at best" - that is a quote from someone I admire. Not sure what thread you mean, This thread? The comment submission form? Did your comment get acknowledged?
Comments sent this morning! I remember when they tried this tactic ten years ago. Sheesh. Are we gonna have to re-visit this in another ten years?? Deadline to submit comments is today, Dec. 8th, at 5pm EST, I understand.
What you say makes sense. I can see the reluctance to drop the ban because of past experience, so it sort of amazes me that this is not a consideration when we try to export product there. I have no idea myself, but it jumps out to me that we simply not use the hormones for product destined for the EU market. From my observations, business (trade) seems to succeed when you deliver what consumers want, not what you want them to have. It's a shame we are on the list, but obviously they were trying to think of every import source they could target.
My guess - yes, every 10 years. I'll ask what it would take to get the bikes off the list but my guess would be running a modified list through a WTO subcommittee for approval.... and I do not have the time/energy/authority/power to make that happen. Yep.
Update Just got off the phone with the USTR. It seems the comments made are making a big difference and the motorcycle community is "well represented" (yes that was a quote). It appears that there are 31 pages of approved and visible comments on the USTR comment page, I'm sure there are more waiting to be approved. 28 pages of them were received after a motorcycle dealer in IL posted a link/info on his website. 20 of those pages were received after this and other threads started on motorcycle enthusiast forums. More comments are always a good thing and they consider "quality" more important than "quantity" and based on what I've read you all have been doing exactly that. Articulate & clear input is better than the random "Please repeal the mustard tariff" comment on the site. If you are still going to comment (there is about 2 hours left to do that) you may want to point out that there will be no tariffs collected if the motorcycles have a 100% tariff. At least *I* don't think people will pay $8,000 for a bike. On a whim *possibly* an extra $8 for a bottle of mustard in a gift basket, but not an extra $8,000 for a bike. .
