June 20, 2013. The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently finalized a rule calling for mandatory labels indicating a meat's country of origin and production steps. These labeling requirements create complications for the U.S. Meat Industry and have been vigorously opposed by various meat industry organizations. The American Meat Institute (http://www.meatami.com/) and the National Cattlemen's Beef Association (http://www.beefusa.org/) called it “extremely disappointing and short-sighted."
Meat industry organizations state that the rule will increase distrust of foreign meat products and damage U.S. producers through "retaliatory tariffs or other authorized trade sanctions." As AgriNews states that, Canada and Mexico have already challenged the law but have been met with resistance by the World Trade Organization, who states that the rule brings the U.S. into compliance with existing WTO labeling guidelines.