The chair of the Canadian Pork Council is applauding the stand being taken by the government of Canada to ensure the United States addresses Canadian and Mexican concerns over U.S. Mandatory Country of Origin Labelling.
Yesterday the World Trade Organization announced Canada and Mexico have been authorized to ask the WTO Dispute Settlement Body for authorization to impose annual retaliatory tariffs on products imported from the U.S. totaling well over 1,000,000,000 annually.
Canada’s Ministers of International Trade and Agriculture and Agri-Food, have indicated the Government of Canada has made every effort to convince the United States to comply with its international trade obligations and, if the U.S. Senate does not take immediate action to repeal COOL for beef and pork, Canada will quickly take steps to retaliate.
Canadian Pork Council chair Rick Bergmann applauds the federal government’s position.
The red meat industry has been damaged significantly since this started in 2007. Our mandate has always been to have trade, trade access and follow trade rules around the world and we would expect that of our trade partners as well. We have had really good support from the federal government and we’re pleased with ministers Freeland and MacAulay and their statement mentioning that, if the U.S Senate does not take immediate action to repeal COOL, then there are some very quick short steps to retaliation. So we appreciate very much the efforts, the team efforts, that we’ve been able to have with government in order to basically have compliance with regulations that are set out for trade partners.
Bergmann says while there is still opportunity for the U.S. to rectify the situation, Canada is now empowered to take action if that doesn’t happen.
