By Bruce Cochrane
The National Pork Producers Council is urging the U.S. government to comply with a WTO ruling on Mandatory Country of Origin Labelling to head off any potential trade war with its partners in NAFTA.
In December the World Trade Organization gave the United States until May 23 to bring Mandatory Country of Origin Labelling legislation into compliance with its WTO obligations or face the prospects of Canada and Mexico imposing retaliatory tariffs on products imported from the U.S.
National Pork Producers Council vice president and council for international affairs Nick Giordano says, as a pro-trade organization, the NPPC wants the U.S. to abide by its international obligations and comply with the WTO ruling.
Nick Giordano-National Pork Producers Council:
We're an export oriented industry and in fact our experience over the years has been that when foreign governments want to lash out at the U.S. whether in accord WTO rules or unfortunately sometimes otherwise often they pick on agriculture.
In fact pork was on Mexico's trucking retaliation list.
We didn't particularly appreciate that but I'm sure Mexico didn't appreciate the position it found itself visa vie the U.S. on the trucking issue.
We want to see the United States come into compliance with the WTO decision.
It's very important to us.
We don't want to be stuck in any type of retaliation or trade war between our NAFTA trading partners.
That's not good for U.S. pork producers and I don't think it's good for North America.
Giordano acknowledges it's clear that some form of labelling is here to stay.
He says from NPPC's perspective it's got to be in accordance with the WTO ruling because if it's not Canada and Mexico will maintain the right to retaliate so job one is to work with the U.S government to reach an outcome that the three countries and the industries in those three countries can accept and live with.
Source: Farmscape