This was raised during Friday's public hearing in the US on whether SA should continue to receive African Growth and Opportunity Act trade privileges.
To remain part of the deal, SA would have to do more than "address US concerns", assistant trade representative Florie Liser told ambassador Mninwa Mahlangu after the South African delivered testimony to an interagency panel that included officials from the US departments of treasury, state, agriculture and labour.
"Significant and continual progress has to be made on the elimination of barriers to US trade and investment," Liser said, pressing the ambassador to provide "concrete" examples.
Citing outbreaks of avian flu in 20 US states, SA prohibits imports of all US chicken, including the 65,000 tonnes of frozen bone-in portions it recently agreed to let in annually at normal tariff rates.
The US is demanding that the ban be "regionalised" - limited to poultry from areas in which outbreaks have occurred.
Assistant trade representative for agriculture Sharon Lauritsen complained of a "discrepancy" between the ambassador's brief and what SA's veterinary officials had told US officials.
The ambassador suggested that SA would be willing to consider "regionalisation" if there were no further cases of avian flu over the next six weeks.
But Lauritsen said, "we were told (by the veterinary officials) that SA was not really willing to regionalise ... and that we should expect a disease-free approach", meaning that an outbreak anywhere in the US would continue to result in a blanket ban in SA.
Paul Spencer, of the US department of agriculture, noted that "so far this year, SA has accepted poultry from 10 European Union (EU) countries despite an ongoing outbreak (of avian flu) within the EU", where trade was "borderless".
"Why is SA not treating the US the same as the EU from a disease control standpoint?" he asked.
The ambassador replied: "I would not get further into that except to say that ... discussion has been taking place between the two governments."
In questions to the representatives of the US chicken and pork trade associations, panel members sought to establish whether SA was giving US exporters a harder time than those of other countries.
Courtney Knupp, of the National Pork Producers' Council, said: "No other country has the same restrictions." She was concerned that others might "see the South African approach as a model for how to restrict imports without raising tariffs".
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