My reading of the terms of the "provisional" agreement signed last week between the U.S. and EU on the WTO beef hormones dispute was that some small steps had been taken, but there was still a lot of work to be done. In particular, the key issue in dispute had not been resolved: Can hormone-treated beef be sold in the EU?
So I was a little surprised to see this reported today:
In a major coup since his confirmation to the post in March, Kirk has managed to settle a 20-year-long dispute between the European Union and the United States over Brussels' ban on US hormoned-treated beef.
...
"Assuming that we get the beef issue finally put to bed, which we are 99 percent there, then we'll look and see if there are other issues that we might be able to address as well," Kirk said.
I'm all for "hope" and "change," but is it possible some people are being overly optimistic here?
