Lawmakers in Taiwan got into a fist fight and threw pig guts at each other Friday over a soon-to-be enacted policy that would allow imports of US pork and beef.
Premier Su Tseng-chang was due to give a regularly scheduled policy report to lawmakers on Friday morning about the pork policy when opposition party lawmakers from the Nationalist party, also known as the KMT, blocked his attempt to speak by dumping bags of pig organs. Legislators from the ruling Democratic Progressive Party attempted to stop them, resulting in chaos and an exchange of punches.
A DPP lawmaker wrestled a KMT lawmaker to the floor in the scuffle. President Tsai Ing-wen’s administration lifted a longstanding ban on imports of US pork and beef in August, in a move seen as one of the first steps toward possibly negotiating a bilateral trade agreement with the US. The ban is due to be lifted in January.
