The United States should appeal an adverse WTO ruling on country-of-origin labels on beef, pork and chicken meat, said four farm and consumer groups. If that doesn’t work, the groups said during a teleconference, the administration can fine-tune the labels to satisfy WTO or negotiate a settlement with Canada and Mexico. The two U.S. neighbors have won two rulings against COOL in two years. Foodmakers and meatpackers say COOL should be canned.
“We sort of think it’s a no-brainer,” said Roger Johnson, president of the 300,000-member National Farmers Union, in seeing a U.S. appeal as certain. Lori Wallach of the consumer group Public Citizen said an appeal would allow the United States to argue the merits of its labeling rules once more. It would be August 2015 before the United States could face sanctions if it loses again, she said. “The really clear outcome in that case is to settle,” she said.
Canada and Mexico say the labels, which list where food animals were born, raised and slaughtered, discourage packers from buying their livestock. WTO agreed the rules were unfair. While Canada says it lost $1 billion in cattle sales, Wallach says cattle imports are up, so there is little basis for large sanctions. Johnson said the recession, rising energy prices and a shift in exchange rates are the real reasons behind fluctuations in livestock trade. The U.S. Cattlemen’s Association and consumer group Food and Water Watch also support COOL.