http://www.tobacco.org/newsfeed/org/ustr.rss Latest top tobacco news headlines en-us http://www.bgdailynews.com/news/local/scottsville-legislator-goes-to-bat-for-burley/article_510ea84e-527e-11e1-9b48-0019bb2963f4.html http://tobacco.org/news/333612.html A southcentral Kentucky lawmaker hopes that Kentucky burley is given its due when future trade agreements are negotiated between the United States and foreign countries. "There is some discussion of excluding tobacco from the agreements," said state Rep. Wilson Stone, D-Scottsville. On Tuesday, Stone filed a nonbinding House resolution that says Kentucky farmers need to have the same access to trade as other agriculture commodities. The measure is expected to be voted on soon. Sen. Paul Hornback, R-Shelbyville, filed the same resolution in the state Senate, signaling bipartisan support for the issue. Stone said there have been rumors that President Barack Obama's administration wants to take tobacco out of the equation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, a regional trade agreement between the U.S., Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. Those negotiations are expected to finish this summer. "It's not so much a price issue, because world markets determine that, but one of access," Stone said. "If you take tobacco out of those agreements, it will dearly hurt Kentucky and Kentucky's farmers," Bowling Green Daily News rminor@bgdailynews.com (ROBYN L. MINOR The Daily News) Wed, 08 Feb 2012 05:00:00 GMT http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/0367d817414c4f8ca82478ad310711fb/KY-XGR-Tobacco-Trade-Pact/ http://tobacco.org/news/333432.html Legislators have drafted a bipartisan resolution urging the Obama Administration to include burley tobacco in the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement. On Tuesday, Rep. Wilson Stone, a Democrat from Scottsville, and Sen. Paul Hornback, a Republican from Shelbyville, introduced their resolution about the agreement being negotiated by the Office of the United States Trade Representative. Stone said farmers are worried the administration in Washington will "bow to the pressure of anti-tobacco advocates in Congress" by excluding tobacco. Almost all of the burley tobacco grown in the United States is grown for export, Wilson said, and "Kentucky grows the highest quality of burley in the world." Stone said he is concerned that opponents in Congress and the administration want to use the trade agreement as a way to "drive a nail in the coffin" of the tobacco industry. Associated Press Tue, 07 Feb 2012 05:00:00 GMT http://www.wfpl.org/2012/02/07/kentucky-lawmakers-urge-inclusion-of-tobacco-in-pacific-trade-agreement/ http://tobacco.org/news/333403.html Kentucky lawmakers are protesting a current trade agreement that they say would hurt tobacco. The U.S. is currently negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, which includes countries like New Zealand, Peru and Vietnam. But the lawmakers say the proposal excludes tobacco protections. At a news conference in Frankfort today, Democratic and Republican lawmakers urged President Barack Obama to add provisions for tobacco to the agreement. Republican Agriculture Commissioner James Comer says including the crop will help Kentucky farmers. “What we have to be able to do with tobacco is the same thing we’re doing with corn and beef cattle and horses in Kentucky,” Comer says. “We have to grow our export market. In order to do that we have to make sure tobacco is treated fairly along with every other crop in the United States in trade agreements.” A letter supporting the inclusion of tobacco has been signed by all eight members of Kentucky’s federal delegation. State Representative Wilson Stone has sponsored a resolution defending tobacco. He says the crop should be treated as an asset in negotiations over the trade agreement. WFPL 89.3 Tue, 07 Feb 2012 05:00:00 GMT http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/former-hew-hhs-secretaries-surgeons-general-and-cdc-directors-urge-trade-representative-to-accept-finding-of-wto-panel-and-encourage-fda-to-ban-menthol-flavoring-in-cigarettes-135252428.html http://tobacco.org/news/330246.html Former Secretaries of the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare and of Health and Human Services, U.S. Surgeons General, and Directors of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, back to the Johnson Administration, known as The Citizens' Commission to Protect the Truth, today urged the United States Trade Representative, Ambassador Ron Kirk, to accept the determination of a World Trade Organization (WTO) panel and ask the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to ban menthol cigarettes in order to bring the United States into compliance with its international treaty obligations. In a letter, signed by the Citizens' Commission's Chairman, Joseph A. Califano, Jr., U.S. Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare under President Carter who began the nation's first anti-smoking campaign in 1978 and Vice Chairman Louis Sullivan, M.D., president emeritus of the Morehouse School of Medicine and Secretary of Health and Human Services under President George H.W. Bush, the Citizens' Commission cited the WTO panel decision which found that by banning cigarette flavorings except menthol, the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (the Act) discriminates against Indonesian clove cigarettes in violation of the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade. The panel recommended that the WTO Dispute Settlement Body ask the United States to conform the Act with its obligations under the Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) Agreement and accord menthol and Indonesian clove cigarettes like treatment in recognition of their being like products. In concluding that menthol and clove flavored cigarettes are like products, the WTO panel's decision drew heavily on the FDA Tobacco Product Scientific Advisory Committee's March 11, 2011 PR Newswire Indonesia USA Thu, 08 Dec 2011 05:00:00 GMT http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ellen-r-shaffer/a-21st-century-trade-deal_b_947798.html http://tobacco.org/news/325814.html the federal U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) didn't even announce the 2-week meeting on its website. Or anywhere else. Trade agreements are increasingly vehicles for bestowing benefits to corporations that even the most beholden national legislatures could not get away with, and that furthermore trump national laws. . . . According to Georgetown Law Professor Robert Stumberg, tobacco giant Phillip Morris International (PMI) is perfecting the art of tucking arcane bombshells into trade accords between two countries, and then linking them to hop across borders via multi-country agreements. For example, Brazil and other countries have succeeded in encouraging smokers to quit by placing grimly graphic warning labels on cigarette packages. The U.S. is due to start in 2012. Although they save lives, PMI invokes trade provisions to claim that graphic warning labels violate trade agreements that protect the company's trademark rights and related intellectual property rights. (Australia is taking the campaign one step further, and on the verge of implementing plain packaging, without labels or color codes that misleadingly assert they are "light.") The new Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) could strengthen PMI's hand, and unlike you they've had quite a few opportunities to make their case forcefully to U.S. trade officials. Huffington Post Tue, 06 Sep 2011 04:00:00 GMT http://www.nytimes.com/1988/07/10/magazine/pushing-cigarettes-overseas.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm http://tobacco.org/news/320711.html Watching Koop pound home his statistics, surrounded by a phalanx of America's top health officials -physicians from the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta and its Office of Smoking and Health - one would think he was leading a unified campaign toward what he likes to call ''a smoke-free society.'' He is not. Less than a mile away, just across Washington's long, grassy Mall, men and women at the Office of the United States Trade Representative are energetically pursuing a very different goal: to open foreign markets to American tobacco. Working with the Departments of Commerce and State as well as leaders in Congress, the trade office has chalked up a string of victories in recent years that have forced the governments of Japan, Taiwan and South Korea to level a playing field that for years was pitched to discourage competition from cigarettes manufactured in the West. To civil servants at the trade office and the Commerce Department, who slog daily through the mire of international trade negotiations, tobacco is not a health issue. Rather, the export of American cigarettes is legitimate and lucrative, earning approximately $2.5 billion annually in export revenue. In a decade where American goods - from sweet corn to stereo components to semi-conductors - are losing ground in Asia, cigarettes represent a rare and fiercely defended success story. Tobacco exports to the region rose by 76 percent last year alone. But the trade office's breakthroughs have lent new urgency to a formerly benign question: Should the United States Government be promoting tobacco use abroad when, for health reasons, it is laboring to wean its citizens of tobacco at home? Two weeks ago, Canada passed laws that ban all tobacco advertising and require cigarette packs to carry a detailed warning of the dangers of smoking. American anti-smoking groups hope the measures, which far exceed United States restrictions on tobacco, will prompt similar legislation from Washington. The United States is not the only nation finding it increasingly awkward to tolerate a Janus-faced policy on smoking. An increasingly vocal minority of anti-smoking activists in Asia interpret the staggeringly high percentages of male smokers (63 percent in Japan, 90 percent in China), and accelerating rates of smoking among Asian women and minors, as long-term threats to public health. . . . Gladstone locked his sights on the dubious morality of foisting an addictive drug on the Chinese. The government of China had every right to mobilize against the shipments, he argued, adding that the current crisis was so ''unjust in its origin'' and ''calculated in its progress'' as ''to cover this country with permanent disgrace.'' . . . If there are any direct parallels to be drawn between the bureaucratic infighting over tobacco and the original Opium War, one might describe Peter F. Allgeier as the present-day Peel. Allgeier is Assistant United States Trade Representative for Asia and the Pacific -our Government's point man in prosecuting 301 actions against Taiwan and Korea. A veteran of grinding, hundred-hour negotiating deadlocks in Washington, Taipei and Seoul, Allgeier is proud of the trade office's recent victories and bridles at anti-smoking activists who ''over-simplify a very complicated issue.'' New York Times Asia USA Sun, 10 Jul 1988 04:00:00 GMT http://www.theatlantic.com/life/archive/2011/05/developing-world-lung-cancer-made-in-the-usa/239398/ http://tobacco.org/news/320582.html Even as America has curtailed smoking at home, it has helped Big Tobacco thrive abroad. Will the double standard ever end? We want to stop American kids from smoking--so why don't we seem to care as much about Asian or African kids? It was 1997 when Senator John McCain asked that question on the floor of the Senate about U.S. trade policy on tobacco. Nearly 15 years later, that question is still being asked. Thankfully, new trade talks on tobacco--the first launched by the Obama administration--may provide an answer, finally bridging the gap between our domestic and international policies. For most of the eighties and nineties, domestic and international policies on tobacco diverged. At home, innovative anti-smoking campaigns, higher excise taxes, and civil and criminal lawsuits cut 1965 smoking rates in half for American adults. Abroad, U.S. trade officials pressured emerging Asian economies to open their markets to imported cigarettes. The entry of multinational tobacco companies sharply increased tobacco use in these countries, which were unprepared for intensive marketing, particularly to women and youth. These companies now employ the same tactics in developing countries--including cartoon characters, billboards, and music sponsorships--that are prohibited in the United States. . . . The Obama administration recently launched its first trade agreement negotiation, known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement. Philip Morris International has asked American officials to use these talks to eliminate tobacco tariffs and block the use of large health warning labels on cigarette packs. It is unclear whether U.S. trade officials will agree. The question is not merely academic. One of the countries participating in the TPP talks is a lower-income country--Vietnam. The arrival of multinational tobacco companies in Vietnam would be disastrous. WHO and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data show that nearly half the men in Vietnam already smoke, but only 2 percent of women do. A state-owned tobacco company dominates local sales, so there is little incentive for advertising. Vietnam took the important step of joining the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in 2007, but it is still failing to implement the Convention's tobacco control programs. Cigarette taxes are much lower and warning labels smaller than the WHO recommends. No-smoking legislation still doesn't exist, even in hospitals and schools. The United States need not exclude tobacco from the TPP talks. Indeed, lower tobacco subsidies and improved coordination on regulation would advance U.S. trade and tobacco control goals. But we must not seek lower tobacco tariffs in Vietnam. And we must not prevent trading partners from using the most effective health warnings on cigarettes. The United States has shown great courage and leadership in protecting its children from the perils of tobacco. It's past time that we adopt trade policies that support the world's poorest countries in their efforts to do the same. The Atlantic Monthly Tue, 24 May 2011 04:00:00 GMT http://search.japantimes.co.jp/rss/eo20110328cc.html http://tobacco.org/news/317310.html It is estimated that, if current trends persist for the next 30 years, up to 7 million people from developing countries will die every year from diseases related to smoking. For the past several years, corporations such as Philip Morris, RJ Reynolds, and British-American Tobacco have been expanding rapidly in Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America. Tobacco-provoked deaths can only add to the inequities in health of ethnic and minority populations. . . . Since the early 1980s, American trade officials, with help from the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, have led a sustained campaign to open markets in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand among the Asian nations. . . . Despite increasing condemnation by public health officials and the World Health Organization, international companies continue with their indiscriminate tobacco-promotional efforts in developing countries, exacting a high human toll. As things stand now, only a multidisciplinary strategy including education, taxation, legislation and regulation of trade practices of transnational corporations will be able to control this pandemic. Japan Times Sun, 27 Mar 2011 04:00:00 GMT http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-20037456-261.html http://tobacco.org/news/316103.html Demonoid, clones of Allofmp3, Torrentz.com, Isohunt, Kickasstorrents, Btjunkie, and The Pirate Bay were among the Web sites included in today's "The Nortious Markets List" released by the U.S. Trade Representative. According to the USTR, which acts as this country's chief trade negotiator, the list was created to identify "markets, including those on the Internet, which exemplify the problem of marketplaces dealing in infringing goods and helping sustain global piracy." "The list below recognizes markets in which pirated or counterfeit goods are reportedly available," the USTR said in a statement, adding that the list is not exhaustive. "Rather, the list highlights with concern some of the most prominent examples of notorious markets in each of the categories referenced." . . . * B2B and B2C category: Business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) websites have been cited by industry as offering a wide range of infringing products (such as cigarettes, clothing, manufactured goods, pharmaceutical products and sporting goods) to consumers and businesses while maintaining intellectual property policies that are inconsistent with industry norms. CNET News.com Mon, 28 Feb 2011 05:00:00 GMT http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/01/19/smoke_and_mirrors http://tobacco.org/news/313912.html This week marks 10 years since President Bill Clinton signed an executive order, which remains in effect, requiring U.S. agencies to take "strong action to address the potential global epidemic of diseases caused by tobacco use." While the intervening decade has seen significant efforts to reduce smoking domestically, Washington continues to do too little to address the expanding tobacco use in developing countries and its devastating consequences. At home, the U.S. government is cracking down on tobacco. . . . Abroad, however, U.S. engagement on tobacco control is minimal. The United States has yet to join the 171 countries that have ratified the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control . . . Multinational tobacco companies are exploiting U.S. and other affluent countries' trade policies to pursue these tactics and outmaneuver developing-country regulators. Increasingly, multinational tobacco companies use dispute resolution under trade and investment agreements to block labeling and advertising restrictions in low- and middle-income countries. Free trade agreements reduce tobacco product tariffs before developing countries can introduce adequate domestic tobacco control and taxation programs to compensate for the lower price of imported cigarettes. . . . Fortunately, it's an especially opportune moment for U.S. leadership on international tobacco control. The scientific consensus that to­bacco use and secondhand smoke cause a plague of terminal and disabling diseases no longer faces serious challenge. The WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control is among the most widely subscribed treaties in the world and provides a blueprint for acting on the most evidence-based and cost-effective strategies for global tobacco control. A $500 million, multiyear commitment from the Bloomberg Initiative and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has injected sorely needed resources into tobacco-control programs in 20 priority developing countries. Anti-smoking NGOs like the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids and the Framework Convention Alliance are doing groundbreaking work on global tobacco control and would be capable U.S. government partners. Increased U.S. engagement on global tobacco control can transform this momentum into sus­tainable progress. . . . The United States must not wait another 10 years to demonstrate internationally the same leadership it has shown on tobacco control domestically. Obama has said he supports the WHO framework convention; but he should not wait for the Senate to ratify it before integrating tobacco control into existing U.S. efforts on maternal and child health, disease control, and health-systems strengthening. Foreign Policy Magazine Wed, 19 Jan 2011 05:00:00 GMT http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/194_02_170111/fau10721_fm.html http://tobacco.org/news/313683.html Introduction -- Ensuring regulatory coherence and transparency -- Benefiting multinationals and small-medium enterprises -- Improving multilateral investor-state dispute settlement -- Conclusion . . . US-based multinational pharmaceutical companies are lobbying for TPPA provisions like those in the Australia-US Free Trade Agreement, which reduce government cost-effectiveness regulatory control of pharmaceuticals, threatening equitable access to medicines. * They also advocate increased TPPA intellectual monopoly privilege protection, which will further limit the development of Australian generic medicine enterprises and restrict patient access to cheap, bioequivalent prescription drugs. * Of particular concern is that proposed TPPA multilateral investor-state dispute settlement procedures would allow US corporations (as well as those of other TPPA nations) to obtain damages against Australian governments through international arbitral proceedings if their investments are impeded by Australian public health and environment protection legislation. Medical Journal of Australia membership@ama.com.au ( Thomas A Faunce and Ruth Townsend) Australia Sun, 16 Jan 2011 05:00:00 GMT http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/wellbeing/fresh-assault-on-antismoking-laws-20110116-19slv.html http://tobacco.org/news/313659.html THE tobacco industry has launched a backdoor attack on legislation to make plain packaging of cigarettes compulsory, using a regional free trade agreement to which Australia is expected to become a signatory. Philip Morris has used Australia's plain-packaging laws, scheduled to come into effect next year, to argue the need for ''investor state'' provisions in the upcoming Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement. This would allow companies to sue member governments if they pass legislation curtailing business activities. Thomas Faunce, an Australian Research Council future fellow at the Australian National University, called on the federal government to resist the inclusion of investor state provisions in the agreement. He said the provisions duplicated ground that had already been covered in the 2005 Australia-US free trade pact. ''Australia can rebut such attempts on the basis that they reopen the [free trade agreement] negotiations where an investor-state clause was expressly excluded,'' Associate Professor Faunce wrote in a critique published today in the Medical Journal of Australia. . . . Simon Chapman, a professor of public health at the University of Sydney, said the company's stance was consistent with the tobacco industry's history of attempting to use trade agreements to defeat individual countries' health laws. ''It's yet another sign of the degree to which the industry will go to to defeat and delay any measure that will actually work [to cut smoking rates]'', he said. Sydney Morning Herald Australia Mon, 17 Jan 2011 05:00:00 GMT http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/big-tobacco-takes-fight-over-plain-cigarette-packs-to-free-trade-agreement/story-e6frf7jx-1225988764811 http://tobacco.org/news/313658.html BIG tobacco is hoping a new multilateral free trade agreement will enable it to sue the Federal Government if Australia introduces plain packaging for cigarettes in mid-2012 as planned. Philip Morris wants a clause added to the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA), currently being negotiated, which would allow the company to sue the commonwealth for damages internationally. Health experts are calling on the Gillard Government to fight back by insisting on a counter-clause to make clear the regional agreement couldn't restrict efforts "to prevent or reduce tobacco use". Associate Professor Thomas Faunce says Philip Morris has lobbied the United States Trade Representative regarding the TPPA. In its submission the tobacco company argues plain packaging amounts to the theft of intellectual property. Philip Morris also states plain packs, devoid of brand logos, images and colours, would limit "commercial free speech" and restrict competition. It wants an investor-state dispute settlement provision inserted in the trade agreement that would allow it to sue governments that introduced legislation impeding foreign investment. AAP Australia Sun, 16 Jan 2011 05:00:00 GMT http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/4425346/Tobacco-giants-call-on-law-stirs-up-Greens http://tobacco.org/news/311852.html The Greens have stepped up their attack on a planned trans-Pacific free trade zone after tobacco giant Philip Morris called for the right to challenge anti-smoking laws. Greens co-leader Russel Norman revealed yesterday a Philip Morris submission to the United States Government which insisted any deal must allow challenges to laws such as the regulation of cigarette packaging or bans on tobacco products. The company is presently suing the Uruguay Government over a law requiring graphic warnings on smoking to cover 80 per cent of cigarette packs, saying it infringes trademark rights under a free-trade deal with Switzerland, where it has a base. Mr Norman said the Philip Morris submission on the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership showed it wanted similar powers under that deal. "The real issue is about what they call beyond the border restrictions, which is about governments passing laws that restrict what corporations can do, like selling their cigarettes. "Most New Zealanders will be shocked to learn ... Philip Morris is using trade agreements to try to stop governments from introducing anti-smoking measures. But it is true." The TPP would expand the existing free trade zone covering New Zealand, Singapore, Brunei and Chile to include the US, Peru, Australia, Vietnam and Malaysia. New Zealand exporters are keen on the partnership and see it as a back door to a free trade deal with the US. Independent Newspapers Ltd. / STUFF New Zealand Asia-pacific Mon, 06 Dec 2010 05:00:00 GMT http://www.regulations.gov/search/Regs/contentStreamer?objectId=0900006480a81299&disposition=attachment&contentType=pdf http://tobacco.org/news/311851.html Pursuant to the Federal Register notice of December 16, 2009, the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) announced its intention to enter into negotiations on a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement and invited comments on all elements of the proposed agreement in order to develop U.S. negotiating positions. According to the notice, the U.S.’ initial TPP negotiating partners will include Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Chile, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam. The U.S. objective is to expand this initial group to include additional countries throughout the Asia-Pacific region. . . . Restrictions on Use of Trademarks: PMI is becoming increasingly concerned about government-sponsored initiatives that would effectively cancel or expropriate valuable trademark rights. PMI supports the inclusion of a comprehensive “TRIPs- plus” intellectual property chapter that includes a high standard of protection for trademarks and patents. Trade restrictive legislation and regulations of the type currently being considered by several countries within the TPP ignore the rights of trademark holders under domestic legislation as well as the obligations of those countries under the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs). Implementation of these measures would have serious implications for all intellectual property rights holders. Such legislation may also be in violation of the WTO Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (the TBT Agreement). We discuss in further detail below two examples of government-sponsored initiatives that would severely impact PMI’s valuable trademark rights. Notwithstanding PMI’s general support for the TPP initiative, we are very concerned about the excessive legislative proposals pending in Australia and Singapore that threaten to violate existing bilateral and multilateral agreements with the U.S. Legislative efforts that undermine international investment, TBT and IP rights in these countries, could complicate the task of negotiating a high-standard, 21st century agreement that provides economically significant market access opportunities to America’s workers, farmers and businesses. Investor-state dispute settlement mechanism: PMI has made significant investments in many countries, including the identified U.S. TPP partners. For that reason, we believe strong investor protections must be a critical element of the TPP and any future U.S. Free Trade Agreements. Regulations.gov Australia Singapore Asia-pacific Wed, 16 Dec 2009 05:00:00 GMT