US beef meets rejection at foreign ports

Foreign ports plan to turn away almost all the 46,200 tons of United States beef now at sea, according to a Washington Post newspaper report.

Japanese and South Korean officials refuse to lift their nations' ban on US beef imports, according to David B Hegwood, trade counsel with the US Department of Agriculture. About 2,200 container loads of beef worth about $300 million have been stranded on ships in the Pacific Ocean since the first US case of mad cow disease was detected December 23 in Washington state. The moratorium includes beef already en route when the disease was discovered in December.