Japan PM Has ‘Banned’ U.S. Beef for Lunch with Bush

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, showing he himself had no qualms about U.S. beef — banned in Japan due to concerns over mad cow disease — ate beef tenderloin when he lunched with President Bush on Tuesday.

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, showing he himself had no qualms about U.S. beef — banned in Japan due to concerns over mad cow disease — ate beef tenderloin when he lunched with President Bush on Tuesday. “The beef was delicious. And the prime minister ate it too,” said a senior Japanese official who accompanied Koizumi to the lunch at the Georgia resort of Sea Island ahead of the Group of Eight nations summit. Tokyo, who was the biggest foreign buyer of U.S. beef, imposed a ban on U.S. beef imports after the first case of mad cow disease was found in the United States in December. The move has also hit the Japanese, for example causing a popular dish of rice topped with beef and onions to disappear from the menus of many Japanese restaurants. Tokyo and Washington had been in a deadlock over testing U.S. cattle for mad cow disease, but in a move likely to ease the agony of the “beef bowl” lovers, officials from the two countries have set up a working group aimed at resuming Japan’s imports of U.S. beef. (Source: Reuters Health, June 2004)