cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/26864906

Britain must allow US chlorine-washed chicken into UK markets if it wants relief from sweeping tariffs, Donald Trump has indicated.

It comes after the UK failed to avoid tariffs imposed on the global economy, with the US president slapping a 10 per cent levies on all British exports to the United States.

In a statement published alongside the tariff announcement, the White House said: “The UK maintains non-science-based standards that severely restrict US exports of safe, high-quality beef and poultry products.”

It suggested that Britain’s ban on chlorinated chicken was among a range of “non-tariff barriers” that limit the US’s ability to trade.

The UK has long ruled out allowing imports of chlorine-washed chicken from the US due to health concerns, with Downing Street on Thursday reiterating its manifesto commitment to high food standards.

Asked whether the UK could allow imports of chlorine washed chicken in order to appease the US, the prime minister’s officials spokesperson said: “Our position on that is unchanged. You’ve got the manifesto commitment on food standards, which obviously remains.”

The last major polling done on the issue, conducted in 2020, revealed that 80 per cent of Britons are opposed to allowing imports to the UK, and the same proportion is also against allowing chicken products that have been farmed using hormones.

There is also growing pressure from the farming industry to rule out concessions on the issue, amid fears it could undercut British farmers and drive down food standards.

Nigel Farage admitted he would allow American chlorine-washed chicken to be sold in the UK as part of a free trade deal with the US.

  • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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    3 hours ago

    The UK maintains non-science-based standards

    Maybe look at who is in charge of your health department before your start complaining about “non-science-based standards”

  • SleepyBear@lemmy.world
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    3 hours ago

    Wait…does that mean Americans are currently consuming chicken thats been washed in chlorine?! How the FUCK is that up to scientific and health standards??

    • Jackoamon@lemmy.world
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      2 hours ago

      Honestly, given all the cramped factory farms and wide spread disease in poultry factories, it’s probably good we chlorine them up. Not to say I’d expect another country with better production methods to want to buy our shitty meat though

    • El_Scapacabra@lemm.ee
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      2 hours ago

      Haven’t you heard? It rinses away all the covid from the internal organs. If it works for people it’s definitely good enough for chickens.

  • Flax@feddit.uk
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    6 hours ago

    Why do they want us to eat their chlorinated chicken so badly? Sounds like an evil agenda coming along…

    We have our own farmers anyway.

    Nigel Farage admitted he would allow American chlorine-washed chicken to be sold in the UK as part of a free trade deal with the US.

    So called “nationalist”, support local farmers.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      3 hours ago

      So called “nationalist”, support local farmers.

      Nothing more British than shutting down a local business to reap profit from outsourcing. Just ask Thatcher.

    • Ardycake@lemm.ee
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      6 hours ago

      I wasn’t born in the US but find myself living here. The food is awful. Cutting corners and padding some pockets, but listeria outbreaks on our food has become a weekly commonplace. Hundreds of recalls a month. The food is so treated its inedible. I cut almost everything out and buy from imported stores as much as possible. Even European brands often have an American version that is full of junk, so I have to read labels so carefully. I wish it wasn’t this way. No one here wants this.

      • mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        4 hours ago

        Yeah, there’s a phenomenon where stereotypically fat Americans move abroad, and suddenly start losing a ton of weight. Not because their eating habits consciously changed, but simply because the food that was readily available was suddenly so much healthier than when they were in America. Almost as if infrastructure has a huge impact on the public’s health.

      • aesthelete@lemmy.world
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        5 hours ago

        No one here wants this.

        I agree with your post otherwise, but clearly the food industry wants things to be the way they are. So, some people want this, and they bought the politicians to make it so.

  • surph_ninja@lemmy.world
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    2 hours ago

    The ban on those gross chicken imports was one of the major points of the US’ declining relationship with Russia under Obama. And then they also banned the US adoption industry from trafficking out kids, and the Dems went full-blown Russophobia.

  • NocturnalEngineer@lemmy.world
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    6 hours ago

    If I remember, Project 2025 also wanted to open up the NHS to “foreign competition” too.

    It won’t stop at just chlorinated chicken.

  • x00z@lemmy.world
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    10 hours ago

    “Free market”

    “Buy our chicken or you will lose your market here”

  • Match!!@pawb.social
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    15 hours ago

    generally kinda fucked up to think about raw meat being bulk shipped across oceans anyways

  • 100_kg_90_de_belin@feddit.it
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    17 hours ago

    Nigel Farage admitted he would allow American chlorine-washed chicken to be sold in the UK as part of a free trade deal with the US.

    God, what a sniveling excuse for a politician.

    • samuelwankenobi@lemm.ee
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      13 hours ago

      Nigel Farage is a trump suck up who was literally paid off or bribed by Elon Musk I would just ignore everything he ever says

  • Drusas@fedia.io
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    19 hours ago

    A 2014 report by US non-profit Consumer Reports found that 97 per cent of 300 American chicken breasts tested contained harmful bacteria, including Salmonella, campylobacter and E.Coli.

    Around half of the chicken breasts tested also contained at least one type of bacteria that was resistant to three or more antibiotics.

    Meanwhile, if you ate a large amount of chlorinated chicken – the equivalent to 5 per cent of your body weight in one day –you could be exposed to harmful levels of the chemical compound known as chlorate,

    Yeah, I’d suggest holding out on this one. The way US farms raise chickens is deplorable and leads to the spread of disease.

    • ToadOfHypnosis@lemm.ee
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      18 hours ago

      Americans tend to be unhealthy af for a reason. Regulatory capture is a major issue in our ever more corrupt government.

    • Saleh@feddit.org
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      14 hours ago

      I think we should not overinterpret this. Lets walk through it backwards.

      5% of your body weight in chicken in one day? Assuming you are a small thin person of 55 kg. That means you would need to eat around 2.9 kg of chicken in a day. If you were a 80kg tall person, you’d be looking at eating 4 kg of chicken in a day. Neither is realistic imo.

      Now antibiotic resistance bacteria definetly is an issue.

      As for harmful bacteria including Salmonella… Unless there is data to compare with from other countries that does not mean much in itself. Raw chicken is notorious for giving food poisioning and being much more dangerous in that regard than raw beef, pork, or even fresh fish. I got a very bad food poisoning from undercooked chicken not to long ago and that was in the EU.

      Doesn’t mean that US farming practices aren’t much worse than most EU standards (if enforced), but these metrics mentioned by themselves are not the best indicators for that.

      • Sirence@feddit.org
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        13 hours ago

        I am a small and thin person of 40kg. Now would I realistically eat 2kg chicken in one day? That would be two whole chickens, which is not impossible but unlikely as I don’t really like chicken.
        Would I still prefer my food not to contain a potential risky chemical? Absolutely.

        • Saleh@feddit.org
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          13 hours ago

          I agree. I think there is better arguments to be made for that though. More interesting than short term health effects would be health effects from long term exposure. Rather than just stating the presence of Bacteria, spread of diseases like “Bird flu” that could also infect humans or the building of multi-resistant Bacteria in industrial farming is more relevant than the presence of Salmonella, which is quite prevalent in chicken, even under good farming practices.