One objection is that it allows the initial chicken production to be dirtier as you can then just disinfect later even. In the EU, the entire processing needs to be clean.
They are about as sentient as the salad when this washing we are talking about occurs. (I really hope I understood it correctly that this happens after they have been killed)
BUT....what if it isn't clean? One worker can infect a whole host of chickens and there is no mitigation that will stop it before it is consumed except for the hope that it is cooked properly. Besides, the "chemical washing" is not chlorine anymore it is just vinegar (What many people put on chicken to eat anyway). So ideally you would have clean farms, clean processing and clean storage and then the consumer would properly cook it...but if one of these does not happen ideally, another cheap way to prevent killing people is to use vinegar to reduce possible sickness even further. The only reason why I can think that this would be apposed is to protect poultry producers in Europe.
How is it a strawman? Chemical washing is a sensible thing to do.
You know I live in the mid-west and I have seen some iffy chicken farms and some really clean ones. I have also been to Europe (mainland, Britain, and Ireland) and have seen the same. The thing is you simply can not inspect everything all the time and guarantee the entire supply chain will be free from issues...but you can put mitigations in place that can help.
Salad has routinely been chlorine-washed in Europe for years, and nobody complains about that.