meta Canadian Leaders React to WTO’s COOL Ruling :: The Bullvine - The Dairy Information You Want To Know When You Need It

Canadian Leaders React to WTO’s COOL Ruling


Lawmakers in Ottawa are threatening to impose punitive measures against the U.S. after winning a contentious trade dispute at the World Trade Organization over U.S. meat labelling laws that Canada says have cost the industry as much as $1 billion in lost sales each year.

According to CBC News, Canadian Ag Minister Gerry Ritz and Trade Minister Ed Fast addressed reporters a day after a WTO panel ruled in Canada’s favor over a dispute with the U.S. about country-of-origin labeling on meat products dating back to 2008.

The WTO panel deemed the U.S. law discriminatory and protectionist for the fourth and final time.

“The United States has used and exhausted all possible means to avoid their international obligations, damaging our highly integrated North American supply chain, hurting producers and processors on both sides of the border,” the government of Canada said in a release.

Under WTO rules, Canada and Mexico – another country that had opposed the measures – are allowed to move swiftly to impose punishments, which could likely take the form of retaliatory tariffs on U.S. food products like wine, chocolate, cereal, furniture, mattresses, fruit and juice.

Some U.S. lawmakers are taking that possibility seriously, and are already taking steps to introduce a bill that would repeal the law currently on the books ahead of any retaliatory sanctions.

The measure was blamed for a drastic decline in meat exports from Canada and Mexico.

Source: Wisconsin Ag Connection


Send this to a friend