Source: POLITICO'S MORNING AGRICULTURE, 8/9/18

R-CALF USA and other members of the Coalition for a Prosperous America, which is closely aligned with the Trump administration on trade, made a last-minute bid on Wednesday to persuade U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to include a country-of-origin labeling requirement in a NAFTA 2.0 deal. The push came as a group of top Mexican officials arrived in Washington to resume NAFTA talks.

"If the president wants to extend his 'Buy American, Hire American' agenda to the nation's agricultural sector, then we need to revise our food labeling policies," CPA Chairman Dan DiMicco said in a statement Wednesday. "Americans undoubtedly want to buy safe, domestically farmed beef and pork. They should have the option to choose where their food is raised."

Canada and Mexico strongly oppose COOL and successfully challenged an earlier U.S. measure at the WTO. The idea remains popular with R-CALF and some other farm organizations that believe it boosts sales of U.S. meat products, but the National Cattlemen's Beef Association and other meat groups oppose it.

Opponents say COOL increased the cost of cattle and pork production by imposing an additional regulatory burden. They also say there is little proof that requiring meat packages to carry the label has much influence on consumer purchases.

Lighthizer and the NAFTA labor hangup: Lighthizer may be his own worst enemy when it comes to getting a final NAFTA labor chapter that's acceptable to labor unions and congressional Democrats — a contingent whose support the top trade official badly wants to secure.