Where's the beef... from?

To officially titled "Mandatory Country of Origin Labeling of Beef, Pork, Lamb, Chicken, Goat Meat, Wild and Farm-Raised Fish and Shellfish, Perishable Agricultural Commodities, Peanuts, Pecans, Ginseng, and Macadamia Nuts" Rule will finally start to be enforced soon... maybe?

The AP reported today "The Obama administration is throwing out food labeling rules proposed by the Agriculture Department just before George W. Bush left office, saying it wants labels for fresh meat and other foods that would show more clearly where an animal or food came from, according to consumer groups who've been briefed on the issue." Article here...

So basically the rule which was going to become mandatory April 1 was not strict enough - OK, I agree it could be stricter.
So we have given you stricter guidelines - Good so far.
The guidelines are purely voluntary for the time being - What?
But if you do not follow them we will write REAL rules you have to follow - Huh?
In the meantime Mexico and Canada are filing complaints with the WTO...

I think of it this way. A teenager repeatedly breaks curfew. Mom says "Starting Friday your curfew will be 1:00 am!" Dad decides later that 1:00 is just not strict enough given how often curfew has been broken in the pass so tells son "OK, so we are not setting an official 1:00 am curfew, but starting today we really really want you to be home by 11:00. If you do not do that we may have to make a real curfew for you, we will just see..."

Does that make sense to anyone? Not me...