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

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

WTO dials back Canada’s COOL retaliation
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

CME to revamp cattle delivery rules before COOL vote
Chicago | Reuters — CME Group plans changes to its rules for live cattle futures, requiring that all cattle delivered against the contract must be born and raised solely in the U.S., the exchange said in a statement Friday. The new requirement, effective Dec. 18, covers all currently listed trading months through April 2017. CME […] Read more

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

Lawrence MacAulay sworn in as Canada’s new agriculture minister
Ottawa/Manitoba Co-operator – Only hours after being sworn in by Governor General David Johnston and mere minutes after leaving his first cabinet meeting, Canada’s newly minted Minister of Agriculture paused to speak with reporters gathered on Parliament Hill Nov. 3. “I’m certainly pleased,” said Lawrence MacAulay. “Being a dairy farmer and a seed potato farmer […] Read more

Alberta Beef: Keep up country-of-origin labelling battle
Farm Vote: Rich Smith says next government must maintain the pressure on Washington in long-running dispute
Reading Time: 2 minutes Country-of-origin labelling — a.k.a. COOL — isn’t cool for Alberta’s beef producers. “We’re an exporting industry, and trade issues like country-of-origin labelling are probably our top priority,” said Rich Smith, executive director of Alberta Beef Producers. “In terms of the negative impact of COOL, it continues to have an impact of close to $1 billion […] Read more

COOL saga winding down, but not over yet
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

NAFTA countries debate COOL harm at WTO
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

Voluntary COOL still not OK: Ritz and Fast
Two U.S. senators have introduced a bipartisan bill which would replace mandatory country-of-origin labelling for meat within a voluntary program, but it doesn’t impress Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz and International Trade Minister Ed Fast. The bill is intended to bring the U.S. into compliance with a World Trade Organization (WTO) ruling in May that the […] Read more

U.S. senators ponder voluntary COOL for beef, pork
Considering a repeal for a meat label law ruled offside by world trade regulators, members of the U.S. Senate’s ag committee are also asking aloud if a voluntary label law for beef and pork would do. At the agriculture committee’s hearings Thursday in Washington, D.C., chairman Pat Roberts told senators trade retaliation from Canada and […] Read more