A decade after WTO rulings ended it, mandatory beef origin labeling is back under federal review

On September 1 the first 100,000 metric tons of additional lean beef trimmings became eligible to enter the United States at the in-quota rate of duty, the opening tranche of a 300,000-ton increase proclaimed on August 26 to bring down the price of ground beef³. Three days later, on September 4, the President signed an order that points the other way at the same product: Executive Order 14425 directs the Secretary of Agriculture, in consultation with the U.S. Trade Representative, to review whether the government can again require beef sold at retail to carry its country of origin¹. Washington is thus widening the channel for foreign beef while asking whether to mark it at the counter. The labeling question is not new. Mandatory country-of-origin labeling for beef was federal law from 2009 until Congress removed it in late 2015, after World Trade Organization rulings in challenges brought by Canada and Mexico and an arbitration that priced Canada’s retaliation at more than C$1 billion a year^4,6,7. The new order reopens a settled trade dispute through a domestic regulatory review.

The instrument: a review order and a statute Congress already amended

Section 4 of Executive Order 14425 does three things. It requires the Secretary to “review all statutory and regulatory authorities that may permit the establishment of mandatory country-of-origin labeling for beef products” within 90 days¹. It requires “an economic analysis of the impacts of mandatory country-of-origin labeling that reflects current conditions and modernized practices,” delivered with the legal summary to the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy¹. And it leaves two routes open: the Secretary “may issue or amend regulations, to the extent permitted under applicable law,” or may develop legislative recommendations with the White House legislative affairs office¹. Ninety days from the September 4 signing runs, by this journal’s count, to December 3¹.

The order does not impose a label. At the signing, according to Reuters, the President said further steps, including approval by Congress, were needed, and added: “It will be easy”⁷. Section 2 of the same order separately requires the Agriculture and Interior secretaries, the Trade Representative, the Commissioner of Food and Drugs and the Small Business Administration to report within 90 days on every agency policy affecting ranchers¹.

The limit on the regulatory route sits in the statute. Mandatory labeling was created by amendments to the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1946 in the 2002 and 2008 farm bills, and implemented by an Agricultural Marketing Service rule that took effect on March 16, 2009⁴. The removal also came by statute. The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2016 amended the Act to take muscle-cut and ground beef and pork out of the program to “bring the United States into compliance with its international trade obligations,” and the agency’s March 2016 conforming rule said it had “no discretion” in carrying out that change⁴. A regulation that put beef back on the list would have to find authority somewhere other than the provision Congress narrowed. Whether such authority exists is what the 90-day review is meant to establish¹.

How labeling worked, and how the voluntary claim differs

Under the 2009 and 2013 rules, retailers had to tell shoppers the origin of covered beef and pork, and every supplier upstream had to pass that information along. The 2016 rule described the chain it released as running “from cattle and hogs downstream to muscle cut and ground beef and pork sold at covered retail establishments”⁴. Origin was built from production steps, with definitions of where an animal was “raised” and what counted as United States origin, and suppliers carried recordkeeping duties of their own⁴. The 2016 rule estimated that the change would affect about 992,781 firms and 1,027,204 establishments, most of them cattle and hog operations⁴.

What exists today is narrower. A Food Safety and Inspection Service rule published in March 2024 lets meat carry “Product of USA” or “Made in the USA” only if it comes from animals born, raised, slaughtered and processed in the United States, with compliance required from January 1, 2026⁵. Use of the claim is optional. Executive Order 14425 counts enforcement of this voluntary label among the steps already taken for ranchers¹.

The distinction between the two regimes carried the trade defense of the 2024 rule. Foreign governments and trade groups argued in comments that the proposal resembled mandatory labeling closely enough to invite retaliation and could breach the WTO Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade, the USMCA’s chapter on technical barriers and GATT Article III:4⁵. FSIS answered that the rule was consistent with U.S. obligations and that “Unlike mandatory COOL, the ‘Product of USA’ and ‘Made in the USA’ label claims in this final rule are voluntary”⁵. A mandatory beef rule would give up that defense.

The companion order signed the same day, Executive Order 14424, works on the domestic processing side. It directs USDA to step up enforcement of the Packers and Stockyards Act, widen state-inspected meat’s access to interstate commerce and report within 60 days on statutory provisions and “trade considerations” that keep state-inspected or custom-exempt meat out of interstate trade².

Who would bear the cost of mandatory beef labels?

The record offers one official estimate and one industry estimate, measured differently. When USDA removed beef and pork in 2016, it treated the cost avoided as the rule’s benefit and put the cumulative impact of the 2009 and 2013 rules at $1.8 billion, while saying actual savings were likely smaller because firms had adapted⁴. The Meat Institute cites a July study by Decision Innovation Solutions estimating that reinstating mandatory labeling for beef and pork would add more than $1 billion a year in supply-chain costs, most of it passed to consumers, according to Just Food⁹. Julie Anna Potts, the institute’s president and chief executive, said the move would “raise the price of meat for consumers already struggling to afford groceries,” and pointed to the voluntary label already in place⁹.

Supporters frame the question as one of information and market power. Bill Bullard, chief executive of R-CALF USA, pointed to a new “Label Our Beef” petition from the National MCOOL Coalition: “There’s been about 7,000 signers in just 72 hours, and that’s pretty impressive,” he told Brownfield¹⁰. Justin Tupper, president of the U.S. Cattlemen’s Association, said the group would work with USDA, USTR, Interior and the states, but that “The lasting impact will be decided by the agencies as they do their review,” and added: “We urge Congress to pick up this ball in the Farm Bill and other legislation”⁸.

The division also runs inside the cattle states. Sen. Jerry Moran, Republican of Kansas, told Brownfield the issue splits his own state and that he expects labeling to stay in the Senate’s farm bill: “Then it will have to be debated in the House and Senate to see if it survives in a conference”¹⁰. Charley Martinez, director of the King Ranch Institute of Ranch Management, cautioned against near-term fixes with long-term effects: “I don’t think there’s one policy that’s going to fix everything”¹⁰.

The supply context sharpens the trade-off. Proclamation 11059 rests on findings that the U.S. herd is at its lowest level in 75 years, that screwworm restrictions on live cattle from Mexico continue to affect production, and that USDA forecasts beef output down about 4 percent from 2025³. It allocates the added trimmings quota to “other countries or areas” and tells USDA and USTR to report if the imports are not selling at 25 percent below the market price, so the President can decide whether to end the increase³. Cattle producers oppose the quota increase as a drag on cattle prices and herd rebuilding, Reuters reported⁷.

The longer view: DS384 and the price of discrimination

Canada requested WTO consultations on December 1, 2008, before USDA published its January 2009 final rule^4,6. A panel found the measure inconsistent with Article 2.1 of the Technical Barriers to Trade Agreement, which bars treating imported products less favorably than like domestic products, and the Appellate Body upheld that finding on different reasoning in a report circulated June 29, 2012⁶. USDA’s answer was a May 2013 amendment of the labeling provisions for muscle cuts⁴. Canada challenged that too. A compliance panel and a compliance Appellate Body report, circulated May 18, 2015, found the amended measure still violated TBT Article 2.1 and GATT Article III:4⁶.

What followed set the stakes for any revival. On December 7, 2015, arbitrators fixed the level of nullification for Canada at C$1,054.729 million a year, and the 2016 rule records US$228 million a year for Mexico in the parallel case^4,6. The Dispute Settlement Body authorized Canada to suspend concessions on December 21, 2015⁶. Congress had already acted in the appropriations law, and USDA’s conforming rule took effect on March 2, 2016, without notice and comment, citing both the statute and the arbitration⁴. The WTO’s dispute record lists no later events⁶.

The authorization has not been withdrawn on the WTO’s record⁶. A new mandatory regime built on the same born-raised-slaughtered logic would face the same trading partners. Canada is already the target of the section 338 duties this journal examined in July, and Mexican cattle access is already limited on animal-health grounds³. The violations found in 2012 and 2015 were under those two nondiscrimination provisions; on whether the measure was more trade-restrictive than necessary under TBT Article 2.2, the Appellate Body made no finding⁶. The review due in December will have to say whether a beef label can be written to avoid that finding, or whether the answer goes back to Congress, which removed the requirement in 2015^1,4.