President Donald Trump recently signed an executive order, called “Supporting America’s Ranchers,” that instructs federal agencies to review ways to restore mandatory country-of-origin (COOL) labeling for beef.
According to the Texas Scorecard, COOL has been a legislative priority for independent cattle producers. However, Trump’s order doesn’t automictically reinstate the COOL labeling, instead directing the U.S. Department of Agriculture to work with U.S. trade representatives to determine the regulatory and legislative options needed for better disclosure of beef origin.
COOL labeling was mandated in 2002 and fully implemented in 2013. The USDA issued rules implementing COOL requirements for beef, pork, lamb, chicken, goat meat and certain fish products. Congress later repealed the law, and the agency revoked the rule for beef and pork in 2016.
Dr. David Anderson, an agricultural economist with Texas A&M AgriLife Extension, said the U.S. was certainly sued by both Canada and Mexico for violating North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and World Trade Organization (WTO) agreements.
“On the beef side, it was a very controversial thing with different parts of the industry, both for and against it. We kept losing in WTO because it was viewed as an unfair trade barrier that we had not negotiated out; we just imposed this later. We finally got rid of it, but it has been percolating around ever since,” Anderson says.
He talked about some pros and cons of the labeling.
“All the research on country-of-origin labeling points us toward the idea that consumers like the idea, but when it comes to paying for it, they don't want to pay for it. It's not free to do. You have to have records. There's a lot of logistical — all the way from meatpacking through retail — that's involved in keeping the records to prove what you say is true,” Anderson explains.
