Will Wine & Cheese Become The Newest Weapons In The Conflict With Iraq?

Published on: February 22, 2003

by Kevin Coupe

While France is the United States’ oldest ally, having fought with us against the British in the Revolutionary War that won our independence, and the two nations do some $50 billion in annual trade, anger and frustration over differing positions about the conflict with Iraq threaten to affect this longtime friendship.

Specifically, some in the US, irritated that France has led opposition to US moves toward using military force to disarm Iraq, have called for a national boycott of French wine and cheese.

Signs have been popping up in US liquor stores and departments urging that consumers buy American or Australian wines, and bypass vintages from France.

In the New York Post, admittedly not a bastion of journalistic restraint, an editorial called for just such a boycott. The paper even published a photo of a Normandy cemetery and pointed out that while Americans had died defending France against Hitler and the Nazis, today’s French government clearly had a short memory.

(Interestingly, while the German and Russian governments have sided with France in the debate over war vs. further inspections in Iraq, it is only France that seems to be catching all the grief – perhaps because it wasn’t that long ago that Germany and Russia were enemies of the US.)

There even have been suggestions that French fries be renamed “freedom fries.”

There are a couple of things to keep in mind about this debate:

The French vintners and dairy farmers who provide wine and cheese to America are not necessarily to blame for what their government says and does. (The same goes for Americans, by the way.)

s a two-way street. People in Paris eat at McDonald’s (which may be a more grievous transgression than not supporting us in the UN), as well as shop at the Disney Store and the Gap, and wear Levi jeans.

Numerous international treaties make a boycott not just unlikely, but probably illegal.

American disagreements with France and other countries in the European Union over their unwillingness to sell products that include genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are probably a much bigger threat to trade agreements than the Iraq issue.

Rep. Bill Thomas (R-California), chairman of the House of Representatives Ways and means Committee, which originates tax legislation and controls US trade legislation, has tried to calm the rhetoric. "There are folks who make rash statements. Those won't be translated into policy," he recently said at a conference on trade issues.

While we are sanguine about the likelihood that all these issues will be resolved to everyone’s satisfaction, we also want to know what you think about the proposed boycott of French products. Give us your opinion in our quick poll.

Column Archives

For archived copies of 200 Food and Health News stories, click the links below: