NEW YORK French President Jacques Chirac on Thursday attacked a decision by the U.S. Congress to impose additional sanctions on European goods as a result of Washington's ongoing dispute with Brussels over bananas and hormone-treated beef.
"I am utterly opposed to Congress's methods, which seem more like gunboat diplomacy tactics than 21st-century diplomacy," Chirac, in New York for the UN Millennium Summit, said in a press conference, AFP reported.
But he maintained that, "These initiatives, which are clearly against World Trade Organization (WTO) rules," will not sour transatlantic relations during the annual summit between the United States and the European Union.
Still, he asserted that "This is a sensitive matter for U.S.
and we have absolutely no intention of yielding." And he emphasized the EU's "responsibilities" to banana-producing nations in Africa, the Caribbean, and the Pacific, some of which are former European colonies.
The United States imposed the first round of punitive sanctions on a vast array of EU-made goods in March 1999, when Brussels refused to open its market which has long favored these former colonies to import from Latin America, where U.S.
banana producers are active.
Chirac, who was scheduled to meet with President Bill Clinton at the end of the day, said: "I will be very firm in asserting the European and French positions on this matter with President Clinton."