Politico: TRUMP SUPPORTERS PUSH FOR COOL REVIVAL IN NAFTA

August 14, 2018 3:33 PM

FYI: Politico covered the CPA’s call for COOL in last Friday’s trade news.

TRUMP SUPPORTERS PUSH FOR COOL REVIVAL IN NAFTA: R-CALF USA and other members of the Coalition for a Prosperous America, which is closely aligned with the Trump administration on trade, are making a last-minute bid to persuade Lighthizer to include a country-of-origin labeling requirement in NAFTA 2.0, but opponents of the measure hope it remains dead.

“If the president wants to extend his ‘Buy American, Hire American’ agenda to the nation’s agricultural sector, then we need to revise our food labeling policies,” CPA Chairman Dan DiMicco said in a statement on Wednesday. “Americans undoubtedly want to buy safe, domestically farmed beef and pork. They should have the option to choose where their food is raised.”

Canada and Mexico strongly oppose country-of-origin labeling and successfully challenged an earlier U.S. measure at the WTO. The idea remains popular with R-CALF and some other farm organizations that believe it boosts sales of U.S. meat products, but the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and other meat groups oppose it.

Opponents say COOL increased the cost of cattle and pork production by imposing an additional regulatory burden. They also say there is little proof that requiring meat packages to carry the label has much influence on consumer purchases.