The question “Where does my meat come from?” took on new urgency last month when a corruption scandal at JBS, the world’s largest meatpacking company, prompted countries around the world to ban imports of Brazilian beef to avoid tainted meat.
Although the scandal hasn’t directly impacted the U.S. yet, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced it was stepping up inspections of Brazilian beef, while lawmakers called for both a ban and more oversight of such imports.
But U.S. consumers have no way of knowing whether the beef in their local grocery store comes from Brazil. That’s because while the USDA requires some meat imports to be labeled, beef and pork became exempt last year following Congress’s repeal of the country-of-origin labeling (COOL) law. COOL was—and is—supported by many U.S. ranchers and food safety advocates. But the regulations ran afoul of World Trade Organization (WTO) rules and would have resulted in massive tariffs on U.S. products, prompting lawmakers to rescind the rule.
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