Canada's beef and pork sectors welcomed today's long awaited decision by a World Trade Organization (WTO) Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) Arbitration panel with great satisfaction.The arbitrators have determined that Canadian livestock producers have suffered annual damages in the amount of $1.055 billion CAD.
U.S. mandatory Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) has been in effect since 2008. As the arbitrator's finding shows, in these seven years the cumulative losses for the Canadian beef and pork sectors have been staggering. At every step of the process, the WTO has repeatedly found that the U.S. is in breach of its WTO obligations. The only revision the U.S. has made, in 2013, increased the negative impact on Canadian farmers and meat processors.
Our patience is exhausted. There is no further negotiation to be done and no compromise is acceptable. Canadian livestock producers and meat processors expect the U.S. to do nothing less than repeal COOL or face the immediate imposition of retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods to the same extent as the damage we have endured.
We applaud the Governments of Canada and Mexico for their persistence in moving the lengthy WTO process to this final point. We will continue to support them as they move forward with the imposition of tariffs on a combined $1.01 billion USDof imports from the United States.
Source: CPC