A COOL Repeal: Potential Outcomes of U.S. Mandatory Country of Origin Labeling Requirements on Dairy and Beef Sectors

In December 2015 the US Congress repealed the Mandatory Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) requirement for some agricultural commodities to avoid potential retaliatory tariffs from Canada and Mexico that were authorized by the WTO. In this analysis we simulate and compare the potential welfare effects that such tariffs could have had on two sectors that were likely to be affected by them (dairy and beef) vis-à-vis a scenario where COOL was maintained, using a modified Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) model and a sector specific- disaggregated database