If there was a crisis which stopped imports, we would be out of food and fuel within a few days.

'We don't want to stop imports because our processors need so much of the fish that comes in,' he said.

She added that Wal-Mart stores in other countries only stopped such imports about a year ago.

President Bush has temporarily stopped imports of semiautomatic weapons, but they are are only part of the problem.

Customs agents focus mostly on stopping illegal imports, not exports, although the Government has been stepping up its efforts to find stolen vehicles.

Europe's farmers are already prohibited from using the hormones; Brussels claims that stopping imports would simply apply equal treatment to foreign meat.

Prices went up, but not enough for Americans to stop buying imports.

Finally, has the British Government been particularly lax about stopping imports from countries where the disease is endemic?

My farmer's heart, however, tells me that we should, because it is a legal way of stopping imports into the European Union.

And of course the steelworkers would like to stop cheap imports.