[Intl-tobacco] US Congressmen Call on Bush to Exclude Tobacco from Central American Free Trade Agreement

[robert.weissman@essentialinformation.org]

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Press Release
June 2, 2004
Press contact: Matt Vogel, 202-225-0772



Meehan Calls on Bush to Exclude Tobacco Products from Central American Free
Trade Agreement



Washington - Congressman Marty Meehan (D-MA) today sent a letter to
President Bush asking for the exclusion of tobacco products from the Central
American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA).  Meehan, co-chair of the
Congressional Task Force on Tobacco and Health, wrote the letter with fellow
co-chair Representative Todd Platts (R-PA).  The letter expresses Meehan and
Platts' reservations about supporting a CAFTA agreement that includes
tobacco.



Meehan said: "We should make every effort to support our years of tobacco
control efforts.  As currently drafted, foreign investment protections under
CAFTA may allow manufacturers to challenge national and sub-national tobacco
laws in courts like the WTO.  I urge the President to exclude tobacco as we
move forward with CAFTA negotiations."



For over a decade Congressman Marty Meehan has been a leader in protecting
the public health of our nation - and particularly our children - by working
to curtail the needless suffering associated with smoking and serving as one
of the leading Congressional critics of the powerful tobacco industry.  In
1994, he wrote the prosecution memo that served as the basis for the
national tobacco settlement. More recently, Rep. Meehan has been at the
forefront of legislative efforts to prevent the sale of tobacco to kids over
the internet, to ban the sale of candy-flavored cigarettes, and to bring the
tobacco industry under FDA regulation.



Congressman Meehan's latest effort, a letter to the President to exclude
tobacco products from CAFTA, is below:





June 2, 2004



Dear President Bush,



We are writing to urge that tobacco products be excluded from the Central
American Free Trade Agreement and the series of bilateral and regional trade
and investment agreements that the United States is negotiating with trading
partners around the globe.



There is abundant evidence that including tobacco products in trade
agreements undermines sound tobacco control policies in the U.S. and abroad,
stimulates higher smoking rates in low income nations, and has a profound
negative impact on global public health.  It is simply not true, as the
tobacco industry claims, that including tobacco products in these agreements
would merely shift consumer demand from foreign brands to U.S. brands.



The best econometric analysis has concluded that the opening of Asian
tobacco product markets in the late 1980s and early 1990s led to a 10
percent increase in overall smoking rates by 1991. This was an overall
increase in smoking -- translating ultimately into a major spike in
tobacco-related mortality and morbidity -- not merely a change in consumer
preferences to foreign brands. The increases were most notable among women
and children; smoking rates among teenage girls in South Korea more than
quintupled in the single year after the market was opened to foreign
cigarettes.



While increased trade may offer a range of benefits for importers and
exporters alike, those benefits do not apply to tobacco products. There is
nothing desirable about achieving greater efficiency in the production and
distribution of products that kill when used as intended. Reducing tariffs
on cigarettes and other tobacco products, or removing public health measures
that may run afoul of trade agreement rules on non-tariff barriers, will
result in increased smoking rates and needless, preventable death and
disease.



The tobacco industry has, on numerous occasions, used trade agreements to
threaten countries considering appropriate tobacco control measures.
Recently, for example, Philip Morris argued that Canadian efforts to ban the
use of misleading descriptors for tobacco products (terms like "mild" and
"light") would violate Canada's obligations under NAFTA and WTO. Philip
Morris argued such a ban would violate Canada's obligations under the
agreements' intellectual property, investment and technical barrier to trade
rules. Philip Morris is maintaining this position even though the U.S.
National Cancer Institute has found that "light" and "low-tar" products
offer no health benefits, and concluded that consumers falsely believe that
using such products does offer them a safer alternative to other cigarettes.



We are particularly concerned that U.S. and foreign tobacco control rules
might conflict with investment agreements, such as those contained in
NAFTA's Chapter 11. Under Chapter 11-style agreements, companies --
including the members of the tobacco industry -- can directly sue
governments, often claiming very large damages. In contrast, other trade
agreement provisions permit governments only to challenge other governments'
policies. This feature provides a modest political check on challenges to
sound public health policy -- but it is wholly absent in the case of
investment agreements. The prospect of facing endless litigation and
potentially enormous damage awards is certain to chill governments from
enacting sound, life-saving tobacco control policies.



The United States recently supported the adoption of the World Health
Organization's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). The FCTC has
as its stated mission the protection of "present and future generations from
the devastating health, social, environmental and economic consequences of
tobacco consumption and exposure to tobacco smoke..." The commitment on the
part of the United States and other nations as embodied in this treaty would
be wholly inconsistent with negotiations of trade and investment provisions
that interfere with these public health priorities.



The United States has recently finalized, is now negotiating or has
announced plans to start negotiating trade agreements with Central American
countries (CAFTA), Panama, the Dominican Republic, the Andean nations, all
of the Western hemisphere (the Free Trade Area of the Americas), the
Southern African Customs Union, Morocco, Thailand and Australia, and has
signaled a clear intent to negotiate others, as well.



Tobacco products must be excluded from all of these agreements, including
both their tariff and nontariff provisions. Such an exclusion is easily
achievable and has been done in the past.  Tobacco products were excluded
from the tariff schedules in the U.S.-Jordan and U.S.-Vietnam free trade
agreements. Tobacco products were included in the U.S.-Chile agreement only
at the last-minute behest of Philip Morris -- an unfortunate turn of events
that must not be repeated.



At this time, we are particularly concerned with CAFTA.  We wish to
emphasize that unless tobacco products are specifically excluded from the
agreement, we will find it very difficult to support the adoption of this
agreement.  At stake are thousands and thousands of lives.



Sincerely,

Marty Meehan

Todd Platts

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