Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association oppose COOL (country-of-origin labeling) because they're afraid it would push up the cost of beef too high. I disagree. I see that it would add costs to American beef because we know what laws are enforced in the production of healthy cattle. Those who can afford these costs would buy only US Beef.
Besides our obvious food safety concerns about imported beef, my guess is that because Americans can frequently become too patriotic for the free trade market.
By this I mean that when Canada refused to support the attack on Iraq retail sales would have had devasting drop in local markets. The associated companies would also have troubles because of this, trucking companies, warehouses, Canadian feed lots, all the way back to the rancher whose heifers are ready for sale.
It's okay if penalties against Canada are initiated in DC but who gave the American citizen the authority to do so?
America gets a lot of Mexican beef sent over to the Texas feed lots. Mexican heifers entering U.S. feedyards for finish feeding continue to be “M” branded, “S” branded, tested for tuberculosis and should have a negative brucellosis test conducted before they can get into a feed lot. This doesn't do anything about the fertilizers and sloppy grazing laws used in Mexico that are illegal for use in the US though.
When the American mommy learned the facts she would rightly/wrongly just refuse to buy Mexican beef therby shutting down their US sales. Again, it would be initiated by citizens , not senators wanting votes. There has to be something in the Constitution about forbidding citizens from messing with international trade. I'll have to study it again and find out just what it says. That would bring the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the Agricultural Marketing Service/USDA into fights that would probably never stop unless we agreed to provide approved medicines, approved fertilizers, etc to the whole damn world free of charge.