The National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) filed comments asking the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) to scrap or rewrite a proposed rule on labeling meat “Product of USA.”
Under the proposal, FSIS only would allow that label claim for meat from animals born, raised, harvested and processed in the U.S., NPPC pointed out in its weekly Capital Update. Meat from live animals imported into the U.S. for feeding, harvesting and processing could no longer make such a claim. Minimally processed products could use a qualified U.S.-origin claim, such as “sliced and packaged in the U.S. using imported pork.”
Although billed as ‘voluntary,’ the new rule would have the same effect as being mandatory since it creates a strong incentive for producers to prefer domestic animals to imported ones to use the “Product of USA” claim, NPPC says.
“That would have a detrimental impact on imports of live animals, potentially triggering U.S. trading partners, such as Canada and Mexico, to challenge the rule under the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Technical Barriers to Trade Agreement or the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement’s chapter on technical barriers,” NPPS says in a release. “To be legal under WTO or the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), technical trade regulations must treat imported products as favorably as “like” products of national origin.”
If the rule were to be challenged by Canada and/or Mexico and found to be inconsistent with U.S. obligations under the technical barrier provisions, there would be a risk of retaliation against U.S. pork (among other agricultural and non-agricultural products) unless the U.S. resolved the inconsistency, the article says. The loss of the Mexican and Canadian pork markets, which was $2.9 billion of U.S. pork in 2022, would result in the loss of thousands of U.S. agricultural and non-farm jobs and the loss of more than a third of the U.S. pork industry’s exports.
According to NPPC’s analysis, the proposed “Product of USA” rule would significantly increase livestock producers’ costs leading to higher food prices at a time when they are already struggling financially.
“The rule also does little to address consumer confusion about the origin of products and would strain the relationships between the U.S. and its trading partners with a high probability of tariff retaliation against U.S. goods, particularly agricultural products,” NPPC points out.
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