The United States Senate has stalled again on passing
legislation to bring the country into world trade compliance with its Country
of Origin Labelling regulations.
The World Trade Organization has ruled its regulations
illegal and has granted Canada the right to impose $1.055 worth of tariff
penalties on U.S. products and Mexico almost $800 million worth.
This time the Senate is stalling because it wants to wrap
the COOL issue into an omnibus bill that includes farm-program funding, gun
legislation and a federal law to regulate the labelling of GMOs
(genetically-modified organisms) so the Vermont legislation which takes effect
in July was be over-ruled.
Canada has waited years to achieve fairness on the COOL
issue, fairness that would once again bring Canadian cattle and hog prices up
to the level U.S. packers pay American farmers.
Because they were forced to label imported meat, they had to
keep Canadian and Mexican cattle separate, not only for slaughter, but also
throughout processing and packaging.
Because there were extra costs, they bid less for Canadian
and Mexican cattle and hogs and, at home, packers realized their farmers couldn’t
export, so they dropped their prices close to what the American packers were
still willing to pay.
It cost Canadian hog farmers more than $1 billion a year and
cattlemen hundreds of millions per year.
Unfortunately, it has taken so long to get resolution that
some farmers who were living on the edge either quit or were forced out of
business. COOL also created an opportunity for American farmers to expand
production.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he’s willing to be patient
for a while, but said he will step in to impose tariffs to pressure the
American politicians.
Gerry Ritz, who was agriculture minister and now is
agriculture critic for the Conservatives, has been calling for immediate
imposition of tariffs.
It’s not clear whether that would simply make the Republican
Senators angry enough to continue stalling, or would generate enough political
heat from their tariff-hit constituents to legislate an end to COOL.
The Democrats, led by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, are
talking about keeping COOL, but making it voluntary instead of compulsory.
Canadian farm leaders say that’s unacceptable and say the
only acceptable response is elimination of COOL.
