AFF Sentinel Vol.6#9

The Maelstrom of mCOOL & Mixed Messages

The meat industry has gotten an early dose of the Obama administration's mixed bag of confusing messages. President Obama told Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper that America must not give off protectionist messages -- but he did want to inject new labor and environmental language into side agreements. This was after persuading Congress to slip a softening clause into the "Buy American" mandate in his gargantuan "stimulus" bill. Harper diplomatically responded the NAFTA agreement was quite complex and slipping new language into already existing side agreements wouldn't be easy.

Meantime, Secretary of Agriculture Thomas Vilsack was busy cranking mCOOL to levels never seen in Congress or regulatory processes - directly contradicting what the President told Harper.

Evidently, livestock just got lucky to be an early administration target but the confusion continues. One wonders if the gods of Coincidence and Subliminal Messages are running riot. A recent example was the hilarious but embarrassing Moscow spectacle of Obama's living embodiment of "improving our image with the world," Sec. of State Hillary Clinton. She handed Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov a panic button like Staples' famous "Easy" button that she told him said "Reset" (as in relationship) in Russian.

Click here to see photo.

Unfortunately, Lavrov said, it didn't say "Reset." Actually, it is the message that was supposed to be delivered to U.S. taxpayers but got redirected somehow. Lavrov said the button actually read, "Overcharge." The kicker: the AP picture showed a grinning Hillary with her fingers on the button and a really grinning Foreign Minister -- obviously inadvertently delivering another misdirected message from someone else intended for American taxpayers and businessmen: he only has his middle finger on the button.

Satisfied the Canadians and Russians were sufficiently confused and displeased, the administration then further antagonized Mexico, jerking permission for Mexican trucks to deliver goods beyond the immediate U.S. border. Mexico retaliated by slapping tariffs on 90 items Americans export to Mexico. Beef escaped tariffs for now, probably because the meat industry had already been sent an mCOOL message earlier, when Mexico threatened to ban importation of customary 2,000-lb. meat combo bins. Boxing all the lean manufacturing beef sent into Mexico would raise costs and disrupt plants not equipped or designed to box meat.

Meanwhile, U.S. meat packers are playing their cards close to the vest, most indicating only that they will comply with the Final Rule version of mCOOL and finessing the question of Secretary Vilsack's "voluntary suggestions." After all, how do they justify the cost of going beyond the rules and requesting unauthorized information from producers? How does USDA enforce non-existent rules?

Sen. Tim Johnson (D.-SD) and Mike Enzi (R.-WY) sent a letter to Sec. Vilsack, encouraging his attempts to further tighten mCOOL beyond the Final Rule.

"COOL clearly isn't a trade problem," Johnson said, incredibly out of touch with mCOOL's effect on trade, trading partners and trade flows. Enzi accused USDA of "pandering to packers," in the Final Rule, totally oblivious to the parties to whom packers pass increased costs - most of whom - feeders and particularly ranchers - are his constituents. The pair protested that retailers are not required to segregate beef in the meat case, with U.S. beef in one section with a sign, Canadian beef in another section with a sign or Mexican-born beef in another section. Cheese, wine or bananas are not required to be in "France" sections or "Honduras" sections. Why should beef or pork? Now Senators are micromanaging the meat case?

Regarding trade in general, Rep. Mike Michaud (D. ME.), co-chairman of the House Trade Working Group, sent a letter signed by 54 members, including six committee chairs and 17 subcommittee chairs, calling on the Obama administration to drastically change U.S. trade policy. The letter asks the president to revisit the NAFTA and CAFTA agreements and end all bilateral trade agreements, including pending deals with South Korea, Colombia and Panama. It also called for changes in "domestic procurement policy" and food safety protections. It contended the Doha WTO round is "outdated," has negatively affected countries in the developing world and needs a new agenda including climate change considerations.

The Working Group basically held that trade growth has been bad for the U.S. and called for "trade that benefits more Americans as a whole" and is more "just." Unexplained is how trade restrictions that protect certain unions or industries and slow growth, spread trade benefits to more Americans instead of favoring small groups.

Puts me in mind of a concrete mixer with 20 people standing around throwing junk in it.

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