Email
Password
(Forgot Password?)
This week, trade negotiators from the United States and 33 other nations will meet in Miami to negotiate the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). We strongly urge the U.S. and other countries to recognize the uniquely harmful nature of tobacco products and exclude such products from any trade agreement. U.S. policy should be to do everything we can to reduce tobacco use and its tremendous toll in health, lives and money around the world, and not to help the tobacco companies export and sell more of their deadly products overseas.
The FTAA negotiations are occurring amid evidence that the Bush Administration may be abandoning an executive order issued by President Clinton that stated, "In the implementation of international trade policy, executive departments and agencies shall not promote the sale or export of tobacco or tobacco products, or seek the reduction or removal of foreign government restrictions on the marketing and advertising of such products."
Jump to full article »
Source: Essential Action
Posted: November 11, 2003
Tobacco is a product like no other, in that it kills if used as intended. On November 20-21, 2003, trade representatives of the U.S. and 33 other countries throughout the Americas will meet in Miami, FL for the next round of negotiations on the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). The stated purpose of the FTAA is to eliminate barriers to trade and investment between these countries. But when it comes to tobacco, more trade = less health! The FTAA poses a major threat to efforts to protect the lives and lungs of people throughout the Americas from profit-hungry tobacco corporations. Send a fax to U.S. Trade Representative, Robert Zoellick calling on him to exclude tobacco from the FTAA!
Five schools crom Cottonwood, Jackson, Redwood and Renville counties will meet at the Business, Arts & Recreation Center (BARC) Monday, Oct. 28, for a first-ever Youth Advocacy and Tobacco Prevention training seminar.
The seminar is an outshoot of Minnesota's Target Market program.
It is also a by-product of the program's spring event that brought in more than 350 students from schools all throughout southwest Minnesota.
Legislation expected to be approved by the House Agriculture Committee on Friday would maintain subsidies to grain and cotton farmers while adding new payment programs for producers of honey, peanuts and other crops. . .
Under an amendment approved by the panel, tobacco would become eligible for a program that promotes the marketing of U.S. farm products overseas. [This graph only]
Some see the administration's willingness to cut a deal in the legal case and fight the industry's battles with a foreign government as further proof that the White House is too cozy with Big Tobacco. ''The Republican Party and President Bush are beholden to the industry because of the millions of dollars in campaign contributions,'' Leichtman said. ''And it's folly to believe that kind of money doesn't bring access.''
While Korea has already succumbed to U.S. pressure, it is vital that people in the United States and around the world contact the U.S. Trade Representative to demand that he cease using his power and influence to advance the interests of Philip Morris and Big Tobacco. Countless lives are at stake. Act now! Send a free fax to USTR Robert Zoellick by filling out the form below. . .
Dear Ambassador Zoellick:
I am writing to express outrage that the U.S. Trade Representative has used its resources and influence to advance the interests of Big Tobacco.
In yet another outrageous example of putting the tobacco industry's interests ahead of the public health, the Bush Administration has successfully pressured the South Korean government to scale back plans to impose a 40 percent tariff on imported cigarettes. The South Korean government announced Thursday that it is abandoning plans to impose the 40 percent tariff on July 1 and instead will phase it in over four years.
The administration's actions raise the alarming prospect that it may be reinstating the U.S. government's harmful policy during the 1980s of using the threat of trade sanctions to force foreign governments to repeal or weaken policies to curtail tobacco consumption and marketing within their borders. The world's most powerful nation should not be using its diplomatic and economic might to promote the interests of the tobacco industry and add to the tremendous toll in disease and death that tobacco use takes around the world.
The 1980s policy succeeded in undermining tobacco control efforts in countries such as South Korea, Japan, Thailand and Taiwan, contributing to an increase in tobacco consumption. In the final days of his presidency, President Clinton issued an executive order stating, "In the implementation of international trade policy, executive departments and agencies shall not promote the sale or export of tobacco or tobacco products, or seek the reduction or removal of foreign government restrictions on the marketing and advertising of such products." Reversing this policy is one of the tobacco industry's top priorities. The South Korea situation is the first indication that the industry may be getting its way.
"It is outrageous that the U.S. government is once again using its trade and foreign policy machinery to advance the interests of the tobacco merchants of death," said Robert Weissman, co-director of Essential Action, a Ralph-Nader founded corporate accountability group that works on international tobacco control issues. "When it comes to any matter relating to tobacco, the U.S. trade bureaucrats' position should be: hands off."
"The U.S. Trade Representative is up to its bad, old tricks, working on behalf of Big Tobacco," said Weissman, commenting on news reports that the U.S. Trade Representative has pressured South Korea not to raise tariffs on imported cigarettes.
In the face of reported diplomatic pressure from the United States, South Korea has backed down from plans to impose a 40 percent tariff on foreign cigarettes.
"The likely result of the U.S. action will be to raise smoking rates in Korea, especially among women and children, over what they would have been. In other words, the United States is spreading preventable death and disease."
The U.S. Trade Representative is up to its bad, old tricks, working on behalf of Big Tobacco . . . The likely result of the U.S. action will be to raise smoking rates in Korea, especially among women and children, over what they would have been. In other words, the United States is spreading preventable death and disease.Robert Weissman. Essential Action attacks the USTR for pressuring South Korea not to raise tariffs on imported cigarettes. Weissman, R., <I>Essential Action Condemns USTR Pressure on Korea</I>
Korea and the U.S. have recently revised the 1988 bilateral agreement to allow foreign companies to produce tobacco locally. The revision will also call for a basic 40% tariff to be imposed on tobacco imports, he said.
In order to avoid a drastic market change and friction with tobacco traders, the government has decided to start imposing a 10% duty on tobacco imports from July this year and raise the rate by 10 basis points a year up to the 40% by July 2004.
The tariff increase will be applied to non-U.S. tobacco companies under the MFN clause, the ministry official said.
South Korea backed down from plans to impose an immediate 40 percent tax on imported cigarettes, opting to introduce the tariff in 10 percent increments over four years, starting in July, to avoid potential trade conflicts.
The tax will rise by 10 percent a year until it reaches 40 percent in July 2004, the Ministry of Finance and Economy said in a statement. This will allow foreign companies two-to-three years to set up factories for local cigarette production and ease the burden on Korean consumers, according to the ministry.
``We will also avoid potential trade conflicts, following complaints from overseas cigarette makers,'' said Jung Jae Ho, a ministry official.
Fearing a possible setback in American cigarettes' market share in Korea, for the first time ever the United States is requesting Seoul lower those tariffs. According to Seoul's Ministry of Finance and Economy the US Trade Representative recently sent a letter to the Korean government asking it to contain the rate of increase as the new measure would deal a severe blow to the sales of American cigarettes. A USTR team arrived in Seoul on Sunday to further negotiate the planned hike in cigarette tariffs this week.
The government's plan to levy 40 percent customs duties on imported cigarettes has met with opposition from the US government, which has formally requested that duties be lowered.
The US protest is first time a government has formally opposed duties on cigarettes. Private cigarette exporters in Japan and Britain have in the past requested that customs duties be lowered.
The government plans to meet vwith US trade representatives, who are due to arrive in Korea this week, to discuss the issue.
A high-ranking official at the Ministry of Finance and Economy said Sunday that the USTR had sent a letter to the ministry, asking that customs duties be lowered on the grounds that sales of US made cigarettes will be hurt if such a high rate of duty is levied.