Animal rights advocates on Thursday urged the United States to pressure Australia to end sheep mulesing, the cutting of hide to prevent disease, as part of a proposed trade pact.
US-based People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) wrote to the US Trade Representative in response to a public call for comment over the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement.
PETA said that Australia's wool industry was violating a promise to end mulesing by the end of 2010, opening the prospect of a boycott campaign.
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"The Australian wool industry, by reneging on its public pledge to end mulesing mutilations by 2010, has enabled conditions that could have a significant impact on trade," Tracy Reiman, PETA's executive vice president, wrote in the letter.
"I hope that the US Trade Representative will consider the Australian wool industry's failure to keep its commitment to its corporate partners and will hold Australia to its trade promises," Reiman said.
Animal rights activists have long campaigned against mulesing -- the Australian practice of cutting a slice of flesh from a sheep's rump to prevent the animal dying of flystrike.
Farmers had agreed to stop the practice in 2010, but in July said they had not found a better way to prevent flies from embedding in wool near the sheep's backside and laying maggots, which eventually eat the animal's flesh.
But PETA said mulesing was cruel and unnecessary, noting that New Zealand had phased it out.
Major British retailers last year sent a letter to Australian wool industry leaders saying that the 2010 deadline was not negotiable.
US President Barack Obama in a speech in November in Tokyo said that the United States was interested in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, an until-then obscure deal that involves Brunei, Chile, New Zealand and Singapore.
Australia, Peru and Vietnam have expressed interest in joining.
Obama highlighted the deal as a sign of US commitment to free trade. His allies in Congress have hesitated at ratifying agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea.
