NCBA's Colin Woodall Says Retaliation Over COOL Will Hurt More Than Beef

American Farm Bureau last week came out in favor of repeal of mandatory Country-of-Origin labeling for beef, pork and poultry. That’s significant as the nation’s largest general agricultural organization hadn’t taken a position until the final ruling was issued by the World Trade Organization. The WTO recently ruled that the U.S. continues to be out of trade compliance.

National Cattlemen’s Beef Association Vice President of Government Affairs Colin Woodall said that means the process is at a point in determining how many dollars’ worth of retaliation Canada and Mexico are entitled to.

“The three countries - Canada, Mexico and United States are currently working to settle out the monetary level that which both of those countries can retaliate against us on,” Woodall said. “Basically saying is it going to be two and half or three billion dollars. Once that is done, then we expect the retaliation to actually take place.”

Retaliation could begin as early as the last week of July, but Woodall said more than likely it would begin in September.   Mexico has not issued their retaliation list, but Canada has and it shows Canada plans to spread out the pain to get the U.S. Congress to do something. This won’t be just retaliation against beef and pork, but a whole host of commodities.

“The reason why is because Canada and Mexico are trying to inflict economic damages on the entire U.S. economy, not just on beef,” Woodall said. “So, that’s why they have been very targeted in some of the different commodities they have looked at like California wine, Iowa ethanol, Kentucky bourbon, trying to make a dent in the overall trade relationship. We can’t afford that, not as a U.S. economy, but especially on the beef side, because Canada and Mexico are worth about one third of our overall exports and if we lose access to those two countries it could hit us at a rate of about $115 to $120 per head. “

To avoid retaliation, Congress has to act. Recently, House Agriculture Chairman Michael Conaway joined Congressman Jim Costa of California in introducing legislation that would repeal COOL for beef. The House Ag Committee recently voted 38 to 6 to repeal COOL. Woodall said it’s anticipated the bill will come to the floor of the U.S. House on Tuesday, June 9th for a vote by the full House of Representatives.