The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) increased attention to food imports from China is an indicator of safety concerns as imported food becomes more common in the United States. U.S. food imports from China more than tripled in value between 2001 and 2008. Addressing safety risks...

This report examines U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) data on refusals of food offered for importation into the United States from 1998 to 2004. Although the data do not necessarily reflect the distribution of risk in foods, the study found that import refusals highlight food safety...

Technical trade barriers are increasingly important in the international trade of agricultural products. Designing technical trade measures that can satisfy the growing demand for food safety, product differentiation, environmental amenities, and product information at the lowest cost to the...

The 1996 Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture was a step toward free trade. The Agreement lifts bans and quotas on imports, but allows their conversion into tariff-rate quotas (TRQs), which function like quotas. At present, many of the 1,300 TRQs increased market access to imports, but some...

Nonreciprocal trade preference programs originated in the 1970s under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) as an effort by high-income developed countries to provide tariff concessions for low-income countries. The goal of the programs was to increase export earnings, promote...