Why western countries do not heavily tax beef imports?

Question

I hear that Brazil slowly but surely burns the Amazonian forests (apparently already payed for by western countries) to make room for cows and supported cultures like soybean. This is obviously bad for the climate. Instead of paying Brazil for not cutting woods (like Iran for not making bombs), why not instead heavily tax these harmful imports? Meat is too cheap already, so pay for it like they pay for tobacco! Instead, in France, they make ecotaxes on transportation, but are the cars comparable bad to losing forest? Why not target the greater evil (also)?

What is wrong with this taxation solution? If nothing, why there are no ONG propositions/movements around ?

Answer 1

As others have suggested, it is illegal under World Trade Organisation rules to apply such tariffs on just one country without a specific trade treaty.

And if the western countries did impose tariff's across the board on all beef imports, this would penalize the countries that aren't destroying their rain forests to supply beef.

The onus is on Brazil to impose taxes on exports of beef, so that their own companies make better use of their natural resources. The companies would have to raise their beef prices, the western customers might may more for it, but Brazil would get the additional tax money.

In the UK there are heavy duties and taxes on tobacco because it harms the UK population, the tax receipts pay for the UK healthcare, repairing the damage done by tobacco.

If there was an import tax on beef, then the tax money wouldn't got to Brazil to repair environmental damage there, the tax money would stay in the UK and be spent on just regular government spending.