How do you tell in which format the expiration date is written?

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When I go shopping for food I always look at the expiration date before I buy something. Enough times, when I am shopping at a store that has items from different countries, I have no idea if the expiration date on the item I am looking at is written in US format (mm/dd/yyyy) or non-US format (dd/mm/yyyy). That is especially true when both the day and the month have digits between 1 and 12 and could both correspond to a month of the year. For example, if the expiration date says 12/1/2018 that means the item expires either on December 1st or January 12th of this year. If it is January 12th the item is already expired, whereas December 1st means it's still good to eat. So, which one is it? If I am not sure I try to look at the country the item is produced. If it is made in the US then it's easy. But if the item is not made in the US then it can get tricky. I would think that if it says that the item was produced outside the US, especially in a European country, that the non-US format of the date is used. However, because the item is made for import to the US it can very well use the US format for the expiration date. So how do you tell what the actual expiration date is, when the day and month numbers are both between 1 and 12? Perhaps if the expiration date seems like it already past then maybe I am reading it in the wrong format. But stores can have products for sale that are expired... And I have seen that plenty of times.