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The chicken tax is a 25% tariff on potato starch, dextrin, brandy, and light trucks imposed in 1963 by the United States under President Lyndon B. Johnson in response to tariffs placed by France and West Germany on importation of U.S. chicken. The period from 1961–1964 of tensions and negotiations surrounding the issue, which took place at the height of Cold War politics, was known as the "Chicken War". Eventually, the tariffs on potato starch, dextrin, and brandy were lifted, but over the next 48 years the light truck tax ossified, remaining in place to protect U.S. domestic automakers from foreign competition (e.g., from Japan and Thailand).〔(【引用サイトリンク】 publisher = Motor Trend, Benson Kong, June 1, 2009 )〕 Though concern remains about its repeal,〔(【引用サイトリンク】 publisher = Edmunds.com, Bob Holland February 24, 2006 )〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】 publisher = Jalopnik.com, By Mike Spinelli, Feb 24 2006, )〕 a 2003 Cato Institute study called the tariff "a policy in search of a rationale."〔 As an unintended consequence several importers of light trucks have circumvented the tariff via loopholes—including Ford (ostensibly a company the tax was designed to protect), which imports the Transit Connect light trucks as "passenger vehicles" to the U.S. from Turkey and immediately strips and shreds portions of their interiors, such as installed rear seats, in a warehouse outside Baltimore.〔 ==Background== Largely because of post-World War II intensive chicken farming and accompanying price reductions, chicken, once internationally synonymous with luxury, became a staple food in the U.S. Prior to the early 1960s, not only had chicken remained prohibitively expensive in Europe, it had remained a delicacy. With imports of inexpensive chicken from the U.S., chicken prices fell quickly and sharply across Europe, radically affecting European chicken consumption.〔 In 1961, per capita chicken consumption rose 23% in West Germany.〔 U.S. chicken overtook nearly half of the imported European chicken market.〔 Subsequently, the Dutch accused the U.S. of dumping chickens at prices below cost of production.〔 The French government banned U.S. chicken and raised concerns that hormones could affect male virility.〔 German farmers' associations accused U.S. poultrymen of artificially fattening chicken with arsenic.〔 Coming on the heels of a "crisis in trade relations between the U.S. and the Common Market,"〔 Europe moved ahead with tariffs, intending that they would encourage Europe's post-war agricultural self-sufficiency. European markets began setting chicken price controls.〔 France introduced the higher tariff first, persuading West Germany to join them—even while the French hoped to win a larger share of the profitable German chicken market after excluding U.S. chicken.〔 Europe adopted the Common Agricultural Policy, imposing minimum import prices on all imported chicken and nullifying prior tariff bindings and concessions. Beginning in 1962, the U.S. had accused Europe's Common Market of unfairly restricting imports of American poultry. By August 1962, U.S. exporters had lost 25% of their European chicken sales.〔 Losses to the U.S. poultry industry were estimated at $26–28 million〔 (over $210 million in 2014 U.S. dollars). Senator J. William Fulbright, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Democratic Senator from Arkansas, a chief U.S. poultry-producing state, interrupted a NATO debate on nuclear armament to protest trade sanctions on U.S. chicken,〔 going so far as to threaten cutting U.S. troops in NATO. Konrad Adenauer, then Chancellor of Germany, later reported that he and President John F. Kennedy had a great deal of correspondence over a period of two years, about Berlin, Laos, the Bay of Pigs Invasion, "and I guess that about half of it has been about chickens."〔〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「chicken tax」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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