Pressure on Obama over ‘childish’ cheese tax
Toulouse Democrats Abroad pose with an Obama photo and a wedge of Roquefort.
Pressure is growing on U.S. President Barack Obama from Americans at home and abroad to scrap a planned 300 percent duty hike on Roquefort cheese that many say is embarrassing for their country’s image.
The duty, raised by Obama’s predecessor George W. Bush as part of a raft of taxes in retaliation to a European Union ban on U.S. beef, is due to come into effect on April 26.
But as the U.S. President visits France this week for a meeting of NATO heads of state, American citizens living in the country are joining politicians in Washington and cheese fans at home in stepping up calls for Obama to repeal the tax.
Nearly 500 people have signed a petition started by a French branch of U.S. Democrats Abroad condemning the tax it says was a gesture by Bush “spitefully aimed against the French who refused to support (his) disastrous war on Iraq”.
In Washington, Minnesota congressman Jim Oberstar — who last week met French Prime Minister Francois Fillion — has asked Obama to drop the tax as a goodwill gesture.
“‘Freedom fries’ and ‘freedom toast’ did serious damage to U.S.-French relations,” Oberstar wrote in an open letter to the president.
“We both want to reestablish America’s moral authority in the world under your presidency; a very noble gesture toward that goal would be to remove or reduce this mean-spirited and unproductive punitive duty on Roquefort cheese,” he said.
Meredith Wheeler, of the Toulouse chapter of Democrats Aboard, who launched the online petition said the Roquefort tax is hurting the image of Americans living in France.
“It looks petty and mean-spirited,” she told the Cheese-wire.
Many who put their names to the petition agree, with respondents calling it “silly”, “despicable”, and “senseless”.
“Definitely time to move away from your predecessor’s childish behaviour,” writes one signatory identified as “Damien F”.
Obama, who will attend the NATO summit in Strasbourg on April 3, may get a chance to taste what Americans will be missing, if plans to serve him a slice of the soft and pungent cheese get the go ahead.
According to Wheeler, French National Assembly member Philippe Folliot has asked President Nicolas Sarkozy to put Roquefort on the menu.
Yes, let get rid of another remnant of the disastrous Bush years, that 8-year hiatus when we were embarrassed to be Americans, especially in front of our French friends.
John and Mary Long