(Canada Beef Inc. photo)

Mexico halts bid for COOL retaliation

Reading Time: < 1 minute Mexico City | Reuters — Mexico has halted a bid to impose retaliatory trade measures on the U.S. over meat labeling rules after U.S. lawmakers repealed them this week, a Mexican government official said. Mexico had announced earlier this month it would start internal procedures to strip benefits from some U.S. agricultural and industrial imports, […] Read more

The WTO’s director-general, Roberto Azevedo, and Kenya’s cabinet secretary for foreign affairs and international trade, Amina Mohamed, close the fifth day of the WTO ministerial conference in Nairobi. (Photo courtesy Admedia Communication, copyright WTO)

WTO backs agricultural reforms, split on Doha

Reading Time: 2 minutes Nairobi | Reuters — The World Trade Organization reached deals on agricultural export subsidies, food aid and other issues on Saturday, capping a ministerial conference in the Kenyan capital where rich and poor countries had been split over the path of trade reform. Members said the Nairobi deal had drawn a line under years of […] Read more


(Photo courtesy Canada Beef Inc.)

U.S. Congress repeals COOL on beef, pork

Reading Time: 3 minutes The U.S. Senate and House of Representatives have both approved a repeal of the government’s six-year old mandatory country-of-origin labelling (COOL) laws on beef and pork. Tucked into an omnibus appropriations bill put before Congress Friday, the repeal shuts the door on a major irritant in North American trade relations and is expected to curb […] Read more

(Canada Beef Inc. photo)

Canada not yet pulling trade trigger on COOL

Reading Time: 2 minutes Canada remains “cautiously optimistic” that the U.S. government will repeal its country-of-origin labelling (COOL) law before the Canadian and Mexican governments impose retaliatory tariffs. Federal Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland, speaking Wednesday from Nairobi on a conference call with reporters, said she was “not going to go into hypotheticals” about Canada’s next move if an omnibus […] Read more


(Photo courtesy Canada Beef Inc.)

Clock ticking to avoid North American food fight

Reading Time: 3 minutes Winnipeg | Reuters –– The North American spat pitting Canada and Mexico against the U.S. over meat labels has sown confusion among producers and shippers in all three countries, with a trade war potentially just weeks away. The World Trade Organization on Monday authorized Canada and Mexico, the biggest markets for exported U.S. goods, to […] Read more

(Photo courtesy Canada Beef Inc.)

U.S. livestock: COOL news weighs on CME live cattle, hogs

Reading Time: 2 minutes Chicago | Reuters –– Chicago Mercantile Exchange live cattle futures fell on Monday, partly led by the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) ruling against the U.S. in a meat-labeling dispute, said traders. Canada and Mexico may impose tariffs worth $1 billion onto U.S.-traded products, a WTO panel ruled on Monday, as the countries prepared to retaliate […] Read more


(Photo courtesy Canada Beef Inc.)

WTO dials back Canada’s COOL retaliation

Reading Time: 4 minutes Canada will be able to take only about a third of the revenge it asked the World Trade Organization to authorize over the United States’ country-of-origin labelling (COOL) law. An arbitration panel of the WTO’s Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) ruled Monday that Canada and Mexico may now ask the DSB to authorize annual retaliatory tariffs, […] Read more

(Co-operator image by Shannon VanRaes)

MacAulay favours TPP deal, poised for trade fight with U.S.

Reading Time: 2 minutes Winnipeg | Reuters –– Canada’s new agriculture minister said Tuesday he likely will support the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiated by the previous government, and is inclined to retaliate against the U.S. over a long-standing meat-labeling dispute. The Liberal government, elected last month, has not taken a firm position yet on whether it will support TPP, which […] Read more


(Photo courtesy Canada Beef Inc.)

COOL saga winding down, but not over yet

Reading Time: 2 minutes CNS Canada –– The seven-year saga of U.S. country of origin labelling (COOL) rules and their adverse impact on Canada’s livestock sector may be nearing its final chapter, but the conclusion still needs to be written. After numerous complaints and appeals with the World Trade Organization, the COOL regulations in place since 2008 have been […] Read more

(Photo courtesy Canada Beef Inc.)

NAFTA countries debate COOL harm at WTO

Reading Time: 2 minutes Canada and Mexico have made their case before a World Trade Organization arbitration panel on how much tariff revenge they’re allowed to impose on U.S. goods over country-of-origin labelling (COOL). The WTO “has ruled four times that the U.S.’s COOL rules are discriminatory,” Canadian Pork Council chairman Rick Bergmann said in a council release Wednesday […] Read more