COOL Changes Now Rest Squarely on Congressional Action, Says Vilsack
The Department of Agriculture has exhausted all administrative options at its disposal to bring country-of-origin labeling requirements for meat products into compliance with World Trade Organization rules, said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack during the initial April 16, Senate Finance Committee…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
hearing on trade. The U.S. last appealed in November the WTO’s decision to side with Canada and Mexico in the long-running dispute, and a final judgment is due in mid-May (see 1503090010). “Absent a winning of the appeal, we’re in a situation where there’s a conflict between the law and what the WTO says is inappropriate, which creates the opportunity for retaliation,” said Vilsack at the hearing, confirming the WTO takes issues with the segregation mandates in U.S. law. “We just can’t fix it. We’ve tried it twice. We just can’t fix it. You all have to fix it by either repealing COOL or modifying COOL to create some kind of more generic label.” Industry experts, who widely expect the U.S. to again lose its appeal, recently called for repeal of the COOL regime (see 1503250026).