Canada and Mexico have taken the issue of country of origin labelling (COOL) to the World Trade Organization (WTO). We are basically one year into the implementation of COOL and the financial impact is severe. The impact on the Canada and Mexico livestock markets has been very hurtful.
The interesting thing that I found at the NCBA convention is that there was not much love from the Americans for COOL either. One begins to wonder how we ended up with legislation that the US domestic industry and it’s trading partners do not want.
As I mentioned, Canada and Mexico have filed a challenge to the WTO and it will play it self out in 2010. John Masswohl is the Director of Government Relations with the Canadian Cattleman’s Association. We talked in San Antonio at the NCBA 2010 convention about COOL and the WTO challenge. John is an experienced negotiator and has worked in government relations for many years. After you watch this video you understand the process of this WTO challenge much more.
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