BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — Brazilian beef was headed back to the shelves of Carrefour-owned grocery stores Tuesday after a brief boycott sparked by remarks from the French company’s chief executive about nations in the South America trade bloc Mercosur.
Carrefour CEO Alexandre Bompard apologized to Brazil's Ministry of Agriculture for social media posts in which he said that Mercosur nations had an unfair competitive advantage due to lower environmental and sanitary standards. Bompard was seeking to show support for French farmers angered over a potential trade deal with the bloc, which includes Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay.
“We know that Brazilian agriculture provides high-quality meat, complies with regulations and offers great flavor. If Carrefour France’s communication caused confusion and may have been interpreted as questioning our partnership with Brazilian agriculture or as a criticism of it, we apologize," Bompard wrote.
The Brazilian ministry published his letter on its website Tuesday, along with a statement asserting that the country's agricultural practices are "of exceptional quality and fully compliant with one of the world’s most stringent environmental legislations.”
Atacadao, a Brazilian food warehouse giant owned by Carrefour, said in a statement that it expected beef product restocking to “normalize” in coming days. Beef giants JBS and Marfrig were among the suppliers that had boycotted the French company.
Since last week, French farmers have protested against negotiations for an EU-Mercosur trade deal that would increase agricultural imports to EU countries from South America.
French farmers fear it will affect their livelihoods. An initial agreement was reached in 2019, but negotiations have faltered since then due to opposition that also includes some European governments.
Brazil’s agribusiness sector also fears that the pending European Union Deforestation Regulation will outlaw the sale of forest-derived products within the EU’s 27-nation bloc if companies can’t prove their goods are not linked to deforestation. Its scope includes soy and cattle, Brazil’s top agricultural exports. Almost half of the country’s cattle is raised in the Amazon region, where 90% of deforested land since 1985 has turned into pasture, according to MapBiomas, a nonprofit network. The date of its implementation remains uncertain.
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FILE - A farmer walks by a fire as farmers protest against the EU-Mercosur trade agreement, in Saint-Laurent-de-Mure, near Lyon, central France, Monday, Nov. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Laurent Cipriani, File)
FILE- Gendarmes with armored vehicles face farmers and their tractors blocking a highway, Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2024, in Chilly-Mazarin, south of Paris. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena, File)
FILE - Farmers gather by their tractors before a rally against the EU-Mercosur trade agreement, Monday, Nov. 18, 2024 in Beauvais, northern France. Poster reads: Do not import what is is forbidden in France. (AP Photo/Matthieu Mirville, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — In an angry outburst in a New York courtroom, Rudy Giuliani accused a judge Tuesday of making wrong assumptions about him as he tries to comply with an order requiring him to turn over most of his assets to two election poll workers who won a libel case against him.
U.S. District Judge Lewis J. Liman responded by saying he’s not going to let the former New York City mayor and onetime presidential candidate blurt things out anymore in court unless he’s a sworn witness.
The interruption to an otherwise routine pretrial hearing in Manhattan came as the judge questioned Giuliani's lawyer about why Giuliani has not yet provided the title to a car he has relinquished in his effort to satisfy a $148 million defamation judgment won by two former Georgia election workers.
“Your client was the U.S. attorney for this district,” the judge said, referring to Giuliani's years in the 1980s as the head of the federal prosecutor's office in the Southern District of New York, as he suggested it was hard to believe that Giuliani was incapable of getting a duplicate title to the car.
Giuliani learned forward and began speaking into a microphone, telling the judge he had applied for a duplicate copy of the car's title but that it had not yet arrived.
“The implication I’ve been not diligent about it is totally incorrect,” Giuliani said in a scolding tone. “The implication you make is against me and every implication against me is wrong.”
Giuliani went on: "I’m not impoverished. Everything I have is tied up. I don’t have a car. I don’t have a credit card. I don’t have cash. I can’t get to bank accounts that truly would be mine because they have put ... stop orders on, for example, my Social Security account, which they have no right to do.”
Liman responded by warning defense lawyers that the next time Giuliani interrupts a hearing, “he's not going to be permitted to speak and the court will take action.”
The judge said Giuliani could either choose to represent himself or let lawyers do so, but “you can't have hybrid representation.”
If Giuliani wants to speak in court again, he can be put on the witness stand and be sworn as a witness, Liman added.
The exchange came at a hearing in which the judge refused to delay a Jan. 16 trial over the disposition of Giuliani’s Florida residence and World Series rings.
Those are two sets of assets that Giuliani is trying to shield from confiscation as part of Liman's order to turn over many prized possessions to the poll workers.
Earlier in the proceeding, defense attorney Joseph M. Cammarata asked Liman to delay the trial, which will be heard without a jury, for a month because of Giuliani's “involvement" in inauguration planning for President-elect Donald Trump.
“My client regularly consults and deals directly with President-elect Trump on issues that are taking place as the incoming administration is afoot as well as (the) inauguration," Cammarata said. "My client wants to exercise his political right to be there.”
The judge turned down the request, saying Giuliani's “social calendar” was not a reason to postpone the trial.
Giuliani, who once served as Trump's personal attorney, was found liable last year for defaming two Georgia poll workers by falsely accusing them of tampering with ballots during the 2020 presidential election. The women said they faced death threats after Giuliani falsely claimed they sneaked in ballots in suitcases, counted ballots multiple times and tampered with voting machines.
Rudy Giuliani speaks to reporters as he leaves the federal courthouse in New York, Tuesday, Nov. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Rudy Giuliani speaks to reporters as he leaves the federal courthouse in New York, Tuesday, Nov. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Rudy Giuliani speaks to reporters as he leaves the federal courthouse in New York, Tuesday, Nov. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Rudy Giuliani speaks to reporters as he leaves the federal courthouse in New York, Tuesday, Nov. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Rudy Giuliani speaks to reporters as he leaves the federal courthouse in New York, Tuesday, Nov. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Rudy Giuliani speaks to reporters as he leaves the federal courthouse in New York, Tuesday, Nov. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
