Canada and Mexico ready to retaliate over US labels of origin
09/12/2015
In May, USHSLA gave details of a dispute at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in which Mexico and Canada have protested about Country of Origin Labelling (COOL) demands imposed on them by the US with regard to beef and pork products. Since 2002, meat companies must make a distinction between meat from cattle born, raised and slaughtered in the US and meat from cattle that may have moved across the US’s borders with Canada and Mexico. All three countries share the North American Free Trade Agreement.
On December 8, the WTO approved Mexico and Canada’s petition to institute targeted retaliatory tariffs against the US, with the measures possibly coming into force before the end of 2015. USHSLA issued a statement saying these tariffs are “an inevitability” unless the US Congress repeals the 2002 COOL laws.
USHSLA president, Stephen Sothmann, said in the statement that he remains hopeful the US Congress will react in time to ward off retaliation. One chamber, the House of Representatives, has already passed a repeal of COOL but the other, the Senate, has taken no action so far. He said that retaliatory action by Canada and Mexico would be “very politically targeted, and heavily weighted towards agricultural products” and warned of “an outside chance” that hides, skins and wet blue products could be caught up in this select targeting.
Depending on market conditions, anywhere from 500,000 to 1.5 million head of cattle are imported into the US from Canada and Mexico each year. For pigs, the number is between 1 million and 2 million, mainly imported from Canada.
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