In early 2017, President Donald Trump criticized Europe for not buying more American farm products, including beef and poultry. The EU banned U.S. beef beginning in 1989 because hormones such as estradiol used in American cattle production were judged potentially carcinogenic by European scientific panels. The European Union maintains a comprehensive prohibition on meat from hormone-treated cattle to protect biosecurity. Additional barriers include the widespread use of antibiotics in U.S. cattle farming; drugs like monensin, commonly mixed into feed, were banned in the EU due to concerns about antimicrobial-resistant microbes, while they remain in use in the United States.
This trade imbalance has remained a thorny issue that the current administration has put front and center in its negotiations with the EU to get it to buy more American products, particularly beef and poultry. It sounds like such a simple request on the surface, but there's a reason why Europe isn't using any of our ground beef for their meatballs: American beef is illegal to be sold in the EU.
The ban first started in 1989 when the EU and the U.K. jointly decided to stop importing American beef. The reason has to do with the hormones beef producers stateside were injecting into their cattle. These hormones, such as estradiol, could make the cattle bigger and yield more meat, but European scientific panels found these hormones to be potentially carcinogenic. As the EU takes biosecurity extremely seriously, it has led to a comprehensive ban on meat derived from hormone-treated cattle from everywhere.
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