The World Trade Organization (WTO) delivered a major setback to American consumers and producers earlier this year when it ruled against the U.S. Country-of-Origin Labeling (COOL) law, which requires muscle cuts of meat, and some fruits and vegetables, to be labeled with the country’s name where it was produced. The good news is that the U.S. can both maintain the integrity of this label and at the same time comply with our WTO obligations with one quick fix. That fix – voluntary COOL – has already been introduced in the U.S. Senate.
COOL for meat came into place because of a failure in the free market. Prior to the law’s implementation, multinational meatpackers were able to deceive consumers into believing what they were eating was a product of the United States, when in many cases, that was inaccurate. These meatpackers are now the ones fighting for a repeal of the popular labeling law, arguing that the system costs them money and that voluntary COOL won’t fix the WTO dispute.
{mosads}Now that COOL has been implemented, its costs are negligible. Feedyards and packing facilities already segregate for a number of different marketing reasons like hormone free and antibiotic free, and there are federal regulations that determine the guidelines for these voluntary programs as well. Country of origin of a product is simply a marketing program with federal guidelines so that the standard is applied consistently across the country.
You see, consumers have a right to know where their food comes from. They have a right to go to their grocery store and buy meat and fruits and vegetables from wherever they please without being deceived by misleading labels. If they like beef from Namibia, chicken from China or catfish from Vietnam, they have the right to have reliable information on that product’s origin. Free markets work best when buyers and sellers have access to this information. After all, consumers across the world know where their blue jeans, bicycles and watches come from. In an increasingly global economy, that information should be available at the grocery store too.
The COOL dispute at the WTO underscores another major issue – the U.S. continues to enter into trade agreements that prevent us from maintaining laws that benefit both the consumer and the producer. In the case of COOL, the World Trade Organization has stacked the deck so that it is difficult for Congress to maintain mandatory country-of-origin labeling, despite the fact that over 60 other WTO countries have some form of country-of-origin labeling. The WTO decision against U.S. mandatory COOL provides a telling example of why trade agreements work for the multinational corporations that have a seat at the negotiating table, but not for America’s consumers.
Unfortunately, within days of the June WTO ruling, the House listened to overblown rhetoric from multinational meatpackers and foreign government officials, and pushed through a repeal bill for COOL. Thankfully for American consumers and producers, cooler heads in the Senate have prevailed. Sens. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) and Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) introduced a compromise for the COOL dispute, which would repeal mandatory COOL and put in its place a voluntary COOL labeling system, something Canada and the meatpackers have previously suggested to the U.S. as a fix to the WTO dispute. The Hoeven-Stabenow bill also defines what a “Product of the U.S.” is, eliminating the consumer deception involved with previous labeling systems and providing consumers with labels that are accurate and have integrity. Voluntary COOL will solve the trade dispute once and for all, and Congress should act swiftly to approve the fix.
Johnson is president of National Farmers Union.