(WASHINGTON D.C.) — Amid the on-going conversations surrounding cattle prices, foreign beef imports and more, one Senator believes it’s time to reinstate country of origin labeling.
Earlier this week on Agriculture of America, Senator Mike Rounds (R-SD) shared that he wants to “do it right” this time in bringing back Mandatory Country of Origin Labeling. “Look, we want to do it correctly this time. What happened last time was we made a law that said that our packers needed to be able to identify our beef, but we didn’t include it in our trade agreements with Mexico and Canada,” according to Rounds. “The new approach that we’re taking with our legislation is saying we direct our trade representatives, the next time they do a trade agreement with Canada and Mexico or others, they include permission for us to actually do mandatory country of origin labeling. That would go a long way towards solving this.”
Rounds said that we can also do voluntary labeling of product of the USA. “And that should be for livestock that is born, raised, fed, and processed in the United States,” according to Rounds. “And we shouldn’t allow any boxed beef to come in and then reprocess and qualify for that. That can be done by rule by the Department of Ag. That should be out and going right now. The president could also, by decree, direct that his trade representatives include mandatory country of origin labeling or a version of it when they make trade deals with other countries. All of that would work, and we’d be able to prove how much better and desirable our beef is. This would be good for consumers across the United States.”
In response to President Trump’s recent comments about high beef prices and importing beef from Argentina, the South Dakota Senator doesn’t believe the President realized what that impact would be on the markets.
“You know, first of all, I really don’t think the president realized what the impact, I don’t think he was thinking about the impact it would have on the cattle market when he suggested an increase in Argentinean beef,” said Rounds. “It’s not large compared to the entire market, but it had a real impact on it because it suggested that they would be bringing in more foreign beef into the United States. And it’s almost like there was a suggestion that it was our cattle producers that were responsible for a $6 hamburger.”
Rounds added “that’s kind of like saying, you know, that a coffee producer in South America is responsible for an $8 latte. It’s just not true. And the bottom line is consumers are recognizing the value of beef and they’re purchasing it, and they’re purchasing it because they expect it to be high quality and it’s premium protein.”
He also said that the cattle and beef industry needs to come together to find solutions to many of these challenges. “We can’t be shooting at each other within the farming and ranching industry,” said Rounds. “We’ve got to come together, and if there’s differences between the different organizations about how to incorporate a country of origin labeling process and how to take care of all of those different interests that are out there that have different concerns, we need to work our way through that within the industry itself for the betterment of that feeder, the cow-calf guy, and so forth.”
Hear the full conversation with Senator Mike Rounds (R-SD) on the Wednesday, October 29th, 2025 episode of Agriculture of America linked below. The interview starts at the 22:00 minute mark of the podcast:
