Farmscape for December 8, 2015

The chair of the U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee warns a Canadian and Mexican response to U.S. Mandatory Country of Origin Labelling is no longer a threat, it's real and action must be taken now to prevent retaliation.
Yesterday the World Trade Organization announced Canada has been authorized to ask the WTO Dispute Settlement Body for authorization to impose annual retaliatory tariffs on products imported from the U.S. totaling up to $1,054,729,000 Canadian while Mexico has been authorized to request authorization to impose $227,758,000 U.S. in retaliatory tariffs per year.
The WTO decision comes on the heels of four previous rulings that U.S. Mandatory Country of Origin Labelling discriminates against livestock imported from Canada and Mexico in violation of U.S. international treaty obligations.
Kansas Senator Pat Roberts, the Chair of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, says the WTO announcement means U.S. farmers, ranchers and small businesses will soon be smacked with over $1,000,000,000 in tariffs.

Clip-Pat Roberts-U.S. Senate:
This isn't about COOL.
This isn't about that kind of an issue.
This is about trade retaliation.
The numbers are in and they're bad numbers.
There is no need for this tariff fight.
This is bad news for farmers, ranchers, everybody up and down main street.
We have to stop this trade retaliation.
That is precisely what the Ag Committee is going to do and we're going to do it as quickly as possible.

Roberts asks how much longer are we going to keep pretending retaliation isn't happening?
He says action must be taken and it must be taken now to prevent retaliation before these sanctions take effect forcing U.S. farmers and small businesses out of business and pledges to continue to seek legislative opportunities to repeal COOL.
For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

       *Farmscape is a presentation of Sask Pork and Manitoba Pork