Chinese garlic a national security risk, US senator claims

A United States senator has called for a government inquiry into garlic imports from China and their impact on national security.

Florida Republican Senator Rick Scott wrote to the secretary of commerce, claiming Chinese garlic is unsafe due to unsanitary production methods.

China is the world's biggest exporter of fresh and chilled garlic, the US being a major consumer, though it has accused China of "dumping" garlic on to the market at below-cost price.

Since the mid-1990s the US has levied heavy tariffs or taxes on Chinese imports in order to prevent US-based producers from being priced out of the market.

In 2019, during the Trump administration, these tariffs were increased.

In his letter, Scott makes light of these existing concerns, but goes on to highlight "a severe public health concern over the quality and safety of garlic grown in foreign countries - most notably, garlic grown in Communist China".

He refers to practices which, he claims, have been "well documented" in online videos, cooking blogs and documentaries, including growing garlic in sewage.

He has called for the US Department of Commerce to take action, under a law which allows investigations into the impact of specific imports on the security of the US.

Scott described the breadth of the investigation he wants to see, encompassing "all grades of garlic, whole or separated into cloves, whether or not peeled, chilled, fresh, frozen, provisionally preserved or packed in water or other neutral substance".

He argued food safety and security "is an existential emergency that poses grave threats to our national security, public health, and economic prosperity".

The Office for Science and Society at McGill University in Quebec, which attempts to popularise and explain scientific issues, said there is "no evidence" that sewage is used as a fertiliser for growing garlic in China, an article published by the institution in 2017 saying, even if it were true, "there is no problem with this".

"Human waste is as effective a fertiliser as is animal waste," the article said, "Spreading human sewage on fields that grow crops doesn't sound appealing, but it is safer than you might think."