Originally Posted by
svhar
Where I live all fruit is imported. You can take an apple from Sweden to Denmark or Spain and nobody cares. What is the problem in the USA?
The problem is that fruit imported from another country may be bearing insects or disease which could then infect/infest the crops within the country destroying the crops. the disease or insects are likely to be far more destructive than in their country of origin because of the lack of local predators or resistance of local strains to the effects. This isn't some sort of hypothetical fear. Look up Chestnut Blight and Dutch Elm Disease which were accidentally introduced to the US and devastated the local trees. The Chestnut Blight was particularly destructive. It essentially wiped out an entire species of tree, The American Chestnut.
Originally Posted by
svhar
This could only happen in the USA. The rest of the world has commom sense.
BS. Australia and Japanese far more strict and enthusiastic about their bio-security than the US. I haven't traveled to New Zealand, but I've heard that they are also. I guarantee you that if you had an apple in your baggage and claimed you didn't entering Australia, and thier fruit sniffing dogs found it, and the agent believed you had done it intentionally, you'd very likely get a fine there too.