The Side Effects of the Chicken Tax — Mistakes Were Made

Believe it or not, there was a time when chicken was considered a luxury item. Today, chicken is easily available and cheap at fast-food places like KFC, Popeyes and your local fried chicken spot, but that wasn’t always the case. Do you wonder why you see few European or Asian auto brand pickup trucks in the United States? These circumstances stem from a little known tax law known as the Chicken Tax.

After World War II, there were massive break throughs in chicken farming in the U.S. Because of these breakthroughs, the price of chicken dropped. An item that was considered a delicacy was now a staple food in American homes. The U.S. was producing so many chickens that it had to find foreign markets to sell the excess poultry too, they choose Europe. The U.S. exported inexpensive chicken, drastically and quickly dropped the price of chicken in Europe. Because of this price drop, chicken consumption rose by 23% in West Germany. U.S. took half of the imported European chicken market.

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 chicken hormones could affect male virility. German farmers associations accused U.S. poultry firms of fattening chickens with arsenic. The next step was the individual countries and then the…