Canada Revives WTO Complaint on U.S. Meat Label Law

(Reuters – Roberta Rampton & Doug Palmer)

Canada has revived a complaint at the World Trade Organization about a U.S. meat labeling law that Canadian producers have complained has hurt their hog and cattle sales, Canada’s Trade Minister Stockwell Day said on Monday.

Canada has complained a new mandatory rule that meat packers include the country of origin of their products on labels has curbed sales of Canadian livestock because of added costs for U.S. packers, hurting prices for Canadian producers.

“I’ve informed Ambassador (Ron) Kirk that we will move forward with the (WTO) consultation,” Day said, noting the complaint will move into a 60-day consultation period. “By giving formal notification of a consultation period, it says, ‘We think this is off-side and we want the consultation period to begin,’” he told reporters after meeting Kirk.

Canada normally exports about C$4 billion ($3.28 billion) a year of hogs and cattle to the United States. Read more here.