WASHINGTON – The Canadian government isn’t satisfied by the latest step taken by U.S. lawmakers to avoid a continental trade war.
The government said a bill introduced today in the U.S. Senate falls short of what would be required to avoid tariffs on American products.
Canada and Mexico are poised to impose such tariffs following a string of victories at the World Trade Organization, with Canada specifically seeking WTO permission to impose duties of $3 billion on a range of American products including wine and frozen orange juice.
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READ MORE: U.S. votes to repeal meat labeling law under threat of retaliation from Canada and Mexico
The dispute revolves around rules that require meat sold in the U.S. to be labelled by country of origin, which the WTO has declared invalid.
The subsequent threat of retaliation prompted one chamber of U.S. Congress, the House, to pass a bill repealing the labelling rule.
A bill introduced today in the Senate doesn’t go quite that far; it proposes a voluntary system where producers could label meat by where it was born, raised and slaughtered.
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