U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman, R-Wyoming, has introduced the Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) Enforcement Act.
The best part of the bill is that it expressly overrides international trade agreements. This is important, because the last time the U.S. government implemented mandatory country-of-origin labels, Canada and Mexico used the World Trade Organization to strike them down.
It's about time Congress stood up to anti-democratic usurpations of national sovereignty!
TAKE ACTION: Tell Congress To Stand up for Local Ranchers, Not Imports!
Since 2017, the U.S. has lost over 17 percent of its cattle ranches—more than 150,000 farms. The cattle herd has shrunk to its smallest size since 1951.
High production costs and slim margins are forcing ranchers out of business. As the herd shrinks, cattle prices rise. Sending breeding cows to market is tempting for a rancher feeling the squeeze, but it's a risky decision. If replacement costs continue to rise as they have—the average price of a heifer is now over $4,000 per head—ranchers can't restock and their chance of losing everything grows.
This shouldn't be happening. Over the last decade, consumer demand for beef is up 9 percent. The U.S. herd should be growing to meet it.
If consumption is going up while supply is going down, where's the beef coming from? A growing proportion, about 10 percent now, is imported, mostly from Australia, Brazil, Canada, and Mexico. A tiny amount, just 2 percent of imports, comes from Argentina, so President Donald Trump's move to increase low-tariff beef imports from Argentina isn't going to make a dent in any of this, but the money Trump is throwing at Argentina—$40 billion—could.
The President should use that money to help struggling ranchers rebuild their herds and stay in business, but Trump's unlikely to finance the regeneration of America's food and farming sector. Congress tried to in 2022, earmarking $19.5 billion from the Inflation Reduction Act for regenerative agriculture and local food programs, but Trump's U.S. Department of Agriculture has refused to disburse most of that money.
Without these funds, ranchers aren't getting the support they need to adopt better pasture management. Regenerative grazing would also go a long way to making the sector sustainable—even regenerative. Management-intensive rotational grazing is the best way for ranches to be resilient in the face of drought, one of the things driving ranchers out of business and shrinking the herd. As the Farm Bureau explains, "Pastures are where the nation’s breeding cattle are raised. Good pasture conditions lower the costs of raising a healthy breeding herd. Drought, especially on-going drought, damages pasture long-term and drives up costs for ranchers, who have to ship in hay from other parts of the country. Deteriorating pasture conditions were a big factor in farmers’ decisions to place female cattle on feed from 2021-2023, rather than keeping them to produce calves. Higher numbers of female cattle going to market led to the drop in the cattle inventory and fewer cattle available for beef production."
Absent a massive infusion of cash, U.S. cattle ranchers rely on us to vote with our wallets and buy American. It would be easy if we could trust voluntary "Product of the U.S.A." meat labels, but there's a loophole that allows meat from cattle that spent any amount of time in the U.S., even if they were just slaughtered here, to be labeled "Product of the U.S.A."
The other way consumers get tricked is with ground beef. According to the Farm Bureau, "Imports are mostly used to help balance the domestic supply of lean and fat beef trimmings used for ground beef. While lower cattle supplies affect that balance, so do heavier fed cattle carcass weights, which give us more fat trimmings, leading to a need to import lean trimmings. Over the past few years, beef imports have risen to record levels to help supply processors with enough lean trimmings to blend with U.S. fat trimmings to turn into ground beef." That means that ground beef is a mix of domestic and imported and that's labeled "Product of the U.S.A." too.
The good news is, this loophole will be closed in 2026. The bad news is, country-of-origin labels on meat will remain voluntary, so when 2026 rolls around, most of it still won't be labeled.
Wyoming’s lone U.S. Representative is trying to fix this. U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman, R-Wyoming, has introduced the Country of Origin Labeling Enforcement Act for mandatory country-of-origin labels and fines for false "Product of the U.S.A." labels.
The best part of the bill is that it expressly overrides the World Trade Organization, the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, and all other international trade agreements. This is important, because the last time the U.S. government implemented mandatory country-of-origin labels, Canada and Mexico used the World Trade Organization to challenge the rule that limited “Product of the U.S.A.” labels to meat from cattle born, raised, and harvested in the U.S. They didn't like the idea that beef cattle born in one country and raised or slaughtered in another having to be labeled “Product of the U.S. and [Country or Countries].” They won. In 2015, the WTO authorized Canada and Mexico to impose $1 billion in retaliatory tariffs, so Congress repealed the country of origin labeling requirement (including for chicken, even though Canada and Mexico hadn't challenged those labels).
It's about time Congress stood up to anti-democratic usurpations of national sovereignty like the World Trade Organization and the most recent U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement.
Congress should pass mandatory country-of-origin labeling now!
TAKE ACTION: Tell Congress To Stand up for Local Ranchers, Not Imports!