Complete Repeal of M-COOL Simplest Resolution to U.S. Canada Mexico Trade Dispute

By Bruce Cochrane

The past president of the Iowa Pork Producers Association says a complete repeal of U.S. Mandatory Country of Origin Labeling would be the simplest way to resolve a trade dispute that threatens to cost U.S. industry billions of dollars in retaliatory trade tariffs.

Last week, U.S. Senate Agriculture Nutrition and Forestry Committee chair Pat Roberts introduced legislation that would repeal Mandatory Country of Origin Labeling requirements for beef, pork and poultry and Committee Ranking Member Debbie Stabenow introduced a bill that would replace mandatory meat labeling with a voluntary program that would require labels to detail where animals were born, raised and slaughtered to be considered domestic meat.

Iowa Pork Producers Association past president Jamie Schmidt says the concern with the Stabenow proposal is that it might not resolve the dispute and avert retaliation.

Jamie Schmidt-Iowa Pork Producers Association:
IPPA understands the amendment and recognizes that USDA has been issuing voluntary labels for a very long time.

It's out there, it's available but we have some concern that it may not meet the expectations of Canada and Mexico and that it's not quite as clean a resolve to the problem as just repealing COOL all together.

When the House voted to repeal COOL, they did it right away so that the Senate would have a chance to think about it.

The Senate doesn't react quite as fast but, now that we're getting close to the August recess and close to the deadline, they are starting to address it and hopefully it will get resolved.

If the House and the Senate measures are close to the same, then maybe we'll have this issue taken care of.

Schmidt stresses we're running out of time so we need a resolution on which Canada, Mexico and the United States can agree so we keep the flow of products moving.

Source: Farmscape