Paul Ryan brandishing a large wedge of gouda at a Ways and Means hearing might tell you everything you need to know about global trade at the moment.
“For generations, we’ve been making gouda in Wisconsin,” the Republican committee chairman said at the hearing earlier this year. “And for generations to come, we’re going to keep making gouda in Wisconsin. And feta, and cheddar and everything else.”
But in the realm of international trade negotiations, laying claim to what you call your food isn’t so simple.
Feta is Greek. Gouda is Dutch. But both are also as Wisconsin as it gets. In the heat of the Trans-Pacific Partnership talks, a raging debate has broken out about whether individual countries own the intellectual property rights on names of food and drink.
Do the French own brie? Italians gorgonzola? Can Australian vintners call their sparkling wine champagne? The European Union comes to the debate brandishing not cheese but position papers that insist on protecting these “geographic indicators” for food, according to leaked documents obtained by POLITICO.
With weighty issues like child labor, tariffs and wages dominating discussions of global trade negotiations, food labeling may seem trivial. But the terminology appeals to something stronger: National identity. Not to mention tons of money for farmers and food companies.
Now the debate has emerged as a point of contention in the Trans-Pacific talks, which enter a critical phase later this week when negotiators meet in Maui, Hawaii: While the European Union is trying to bar countries elsewhere from allowing the use of its regional food names, the United States is using the trans-Pacific trade pact to counter the EU’s moves, the trade agreement’s leaked intellectual property chapter shows.
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/us-to-europe-dont-move-my-cheese-120387.html#ixzz3gXPVQJre