The World Trade Organisation (WTO) has ruled US labelling rules on the origin of beef and pork products breach a global trade agreement.
A WTO disputes panel has backed a Canadian complaint about US rules insisting pork or beef products sold in the US must be born, raised and slaughtered in the country to carry a ‘made-in-the-USA’ label. It means beef or pork from livestock exported to the USA for fattening or immediate slaughter cannot be sold as a US product.
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The panel ruled this broke the WTO Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade by “according less favourable treatment to imported Canadian cattle and hogs than to like domestic products”.
Such discrimination is usually banned under WTO rules and the US will have to reform the system or potentially face WTO-mandated retaliatory import tariffs.
