On December 18, President Obama signed a bill that repealed legislation requiring country of origin labeling (COOL) on beef and pork sold in the United States. The repeal bill was included as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2016.

As reported in the July 2015 edition of King & Spalding’s Trade & Manufacturing Alert, the COOL legislation had been subject to extensive litigation at the World Trade Organization (WTO). Canada and Mexico successfully argued that mandatory COOL was inconsistent with the United States’ WTO obligations, and in the most recent chapter of WTO litigation, on December 7, Canada and Mexico received authorization to impose more than $1 billion annually in retaliatory tariffs ($781 million by Canada and $228 million by Mexico) on imports from the United States if the United States failed to repeal the COOL legislation for beef and pork. Canada had issued a list of U.S. products against which it planned to retaliate, including beef, stainless steel pipes and tubes, frozen orange juice, and wooden office furniture.

It appears that the repeal will allow the United States to avoid the imposition of retaliatory tariffs. COOL requirements for other meat products, including chicken and lamb, were not challenged at the WTO and remain in place.