WINNIPEG, Manitoba – Canada will put forward a list of U.S. products it wants to target in retaliation for U.S. country-of-origin meat labels if last-minute changes to U.S. label regulations don't prove satisfactory, Canadian officials said on Friday.
The dispute stems from a 2009 U.S. requirement that retail outlets put the country of origin on labels on meat and other products in an effort to give U.S. consumers more information about their food.
Canada and Mexico complained that the rule caused a decline in U.S. imports of their cattle and pigs, and the World Trade Organization has ordered the United States to make changes by May 23.
"We will be putting forward a list of retaliatory products to make sure that the Americans have a further understanding of what that will be," Ritz said at an unrelated news conference in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. "The process requires that it goes back to the WTO for a ruling on whether or not their changes are acceptable. Should they not be, then those retaliatory measures are assessed and put into play, and that process can take some months if not a year."
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