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USTR: Export Good Tobacco Policies in the TPP

September 04, 2013

<p>It has been widely touted that Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) talks will lead to &ldquo;a high-quality, twenty-first century agreement&rdquo; that will set standards for future trade agreements.&nbsp; But one proposal coming out of the 19th round of last week&rsquo;s TPP talks falls far short of &ldquo;high-quality&rdquo; or &ldquo;twenty-first century&rdquo;, and may well block the export of some of the United States most successful policies against one of the world&rsquo;s most pressing public health issues: tobacco.&nbsp;</p><p>The proposal put forward by the US Trade Representative (USTR) last week in Brunei would reduce prices for US tobacco in low- and middle-income countries and make it more difficult for these countries to enforce anti-tobacco policies like package warnings and advertising and marketing restrictions. &nbsp;&nbsp;This proposal would impact the nine TPP countries &ndash; Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam, and the United States -- six of these fall into the World Health Organization&rsquo;s Western Pacific Region, which had the highest smoking rate among men in 2009.&nbsp; &nbsp;</p><p>To put the implications of this proposal into perspective, consider these two points:</p><p>&nbsp;Tobacco use caused 100 million deaths in the 20<sup>th</sup> century.&nbsp; If current trends persist, it is projected to cause 1 billion deaths in the 21<sup>st</sup> century.&nbsp; More than <a href="http://www.tobaccofreekids.org/research/factsheets/pdf/0366.pdf" target="_blank">80% of those future tobacco-related deaths</a> will occur in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).</p><div class="callout right"> <p align="center">&nbsp;</p> <p strong=""><strong>Many others have spoken out against the US proposal:</strong></p> <p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/23/opinion/why-is-obama-caving-on-tobacco.html">Mayor Michael Bloomberg</a></p> <p><a href="http://global.tobaccofreekids.org/en/media_center/detail/2013_08_19_trade">Coalition Statement </a>from the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, the American Cancer Society, the Cancer Action Network, the American Heart Association, the American Lung Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics.</p> <p><a href="http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/backlash-to-the-apparent-backtrack-on-global-tobacco-control/">Harold Pollack </a> on the Incidental Economist blog.</p></div><p>Tobacco use in the United States is <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/economics/econ_facts/" target="_blank">steadily declining</a>, due largely to widespread anti-tobacco campaigns and stringent anti-smoking policies &ndash; the same kinds of policies that the TPP will make difficult to enforce in developing countries.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><p>So, why is the US effectively hindering the export of its good anti-tobacco policies to the LMICs that need them most?&nbsp; A few key issues have risen to the surface during this debate.</p><p>A &ldquo;carve-out&rdquo; for tobacco &ndash; where tobacco would simply be excluded from the terms of the TPP agreement &ndash; was proposed by Malaysia and makes sense. But the USTR worries that a carve-out would set a precedent that could be used to block a variety of other US exports on health grounds.</p><p>It&rsquo;s safe to say that other US exports aren&rsquo;t comparable to tobacco, which the US Department of Health and Human Services has called &ldquo;a unique product - it is highly addictive, always harmful to human health, and the single most preventable cause of death in the world.&quot; This language &ndash; and the data to back it up &ndash; set a high bar in terms of threat to health that few (if any) other US agricultural export products would surpass.</p><p>The TPP proposal will also make it easier for the tobacco industry to <a href="http://www.tobaccofreekids.org/press_releases/post/2013_08_19_trade" target="_blank">use trade and investment agreements</a> to challenges domestic tobacco control laws &ndash; both in the United States and other countries.&nbsp; Susan Liss from the <a href="http://global.tobaccofreekids.org/en/media_center/detail/2013_08_19_trade" target="_blank">Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids</a> explains:</p><blockquote> The tobacco industry and its allies in governments increasingly use trade and investment agreements to challenge legitimate tobacco control measures&hellip; Indonesia filed a World Trade Organization challenge to a U.S. prohibition on fruit- and candy-flavored cigarettes. Tobacco companies and several countries have filed trade challenges to Australia&#39;s law requiring that cigarettes be sold in plain packaging, while Philip Morris International has used an investment agreement to challenge Uruguay&#39;s tobacco control laws, including its requirement for large, graphic health warnings.</blockquote><p>Such lawsuits would set back progress against tobacco-related deaths in the most at-risk low- and middle- income countries, which often can&rsquo;t afford to fight back.&nbsp; But they could also impede hard-fought progress against tobacco in the United States.&nbsp;</p><p>Bottom line: At home, the United States has enacted smart policies and made tremendous progress against tobacco-related deaths -- efforts that should be &lsquo;exported&rsquo; and replicated around the world.&nbsp; In fact, more US effort to help LMIC improve their regulatory policies on tobacco would be a huge improvement on the current inattention to the issue in the global health space. For its part, the USTR TPP proposal is a step further back for international US leadership against tobacco. Twitter says the Administration may revisit their position ahead of a next round of talks; let&rsquo;s hope the result is different this time.</p>

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