Japan has ignored an order from the World Trade Organisation that it remove burdensome health rules on USA apple exporters trying to sell into the Japanese market, a WTO panel has ruled.
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If Tokyo continues to hold out, it could face authorised retaliatory American duties. US Trade Representative Rob Portman welcomed the decision, claiming his country’s apple exports to Japan would earn US$143.4m without the restrictions. They have included an insistence that orchards are surrounded by 10-metre buffer zones to ward off disease and that exported apples are chlorine treated. The US claims such restrictions have not been sufficiently based on science.
