Newstay TT

Government's imposing of a ban on chicken imports from the United States of America, but limiting the prohibition to chickens from four States - Delaware, New Jersey, Maryland and Pennsylvania - ignores, and naively so, that the virtually non existent physical restrictions on inter State commerce, along with the cynical attitude of many exporters reduces this ban to an absurdity. The ostrich like thinking has disregarded what should have been crucial to any decision with respect to the allowing of any US chicken exports to Trinidad and Tobago. It is that inter State transport, whether by river, railroad, air or highway, makes the ban meaningless. Many chicken processors operating in the four States whose birds have been denied clearance by the Trinidad and Tobago Government for entry into this country can readily get around this by having them transported across State lines to defeat the purpose of the ban. The question arises: Why should the Government of Trinidad and Tobago believe that the United States Government, or the authorities of individual States, will put effective measures in place merely to satisfy conditions for chicken entry into this country?

Admittedly, there is a Clause in the US Constitution, popularly known as the Commerce Clause, which gives the US Congress the authority to “regulate commerce among the several States,” but the law has to a large extent concerned itself with social and labour issues for example, the regulating of wages and child labour. And although there are States that expressly forbid the entry of certain disease bearing plants et- cetera from other States on the grounds that such entry could affect their local plant life etc, nonetheless Government would be wrong to hold that this expression of concern would be extended to this country. For example, although laws of the United States forbid the sale in that country of questionable products, including substandard goods and goods which may be injurious to the health of American citizens, yet the same Government cynically allows these goods to be exported to Third World countries, including Trinidad and Tobago. In turn, there are drugs which are expressly forbidden by US authorities for sale and use in the United States because of the dangers they are held to pose to Americans, including the possibility of exposing US citizens to crippling diseases and possibly death, which are allowed to be produced solely for export.

In light of this, why should the Government of Trinidad and Tobago, specifically the Ministry of Agriculture, hold that the Government of the United States of America would be prepared to make an exception in the case of chickens? And since the guiding principle behind the export of US products, not allowed for internal use, is the expansion of commerce and with it the filling of coffers, should not the Trinidad and Tobago Government which should be concerned with the welfare of the country's citizens have a rethink on its approach to chickens from the United States? What could possibly have been the rationale employed by the Ministry of Agriculture in deciding that as long as it issued the advice that chickens from Delaware, New Jersey, Maryland and Pennsylvania would not be allowed entry here, that some chicken producers from the affected States would not devise systems to get around the ban, albeit for a few dollars more? We urge Government to revisit this ostrich like position as any circumventing of the ban can lead to a possible outbreak of bird flu here, with the potential to adversely affect a not insubstantial portion of our chicken population and, in turn, pose a threat to the health of many Trinidadians and Tobagonians.