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• Quick response averts market scare in mad cow case  

The announcement that mad cow disease was found in a California cow drew a rapid response this week from the beleaguered American beef industry, which has been enduring one crisis after another for more than a year. . . .

Indonesia last year imported 20,000 tons of American beef, a tiny fraction of U.S. beef shipments

U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said during a stopover in Singapore that the U.S. "absolutely respects the right of any country to protect the health of its citizens," but said there was no evidence any contaminated product entered the food chain.

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[The US] absolutely respects the right of any country to protect the health of its citizens.
U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk, in regards to mad cow disease being found in the US.

Former HEW, HHS Secretaries, Surgeons General And CDC Directors Urge Trade Representative To Comply With WTO Appellate Body Decision And Encourage FDA To Ban Menthol Flavoring In Cigarettes 

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 comply with the determination of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Appellate Body 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 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 Appellate Body decision upholding a WTO panel decision which found that by banning all 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 (TBT Agreement). The Appellate Body, like the panel before it, recommended that the WTO Dispute Settlement Body ask the United States to conform the Act with its obligations under the TBT Agreement and accord menthol and Indonesian clove cigarettes like treatment in recognition of their being like products.

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State Specific Benefits: KENTUCKY 

The state's largest merchandise export category is transportation equipment, which accounted for $6.6 billion of Kentucky's total merchandise exports in 2010. Other top merchandise exports are chemicals manufactures ($4.1 billion), machinery manufactures ($1.8 billion), computers and electronic products ($1.4 billion), and primary metals manufactures ($737 million).

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State Specific Benefits: VIRGINIA 

The state's largest merchandise export category is chemicals manufactures, which accounted for $2.8 billion of Virginia's total merchandise exports in 2010. Other top merchandise exports are computers and electronic products ($2.5 billion), transportation equipment ($1.9 billion), machinery manufactures ($1.7 billion), and mining ($1.0 billion).

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Mission of the USTR 

United States Trade Representative Ron Kirk  

Ambassador Ron Kirk is the United States Trade Representative (USTR). He is a member of President Obama’s Cabinet and serves as the President's principal trade advisor, negotiator, and spokesperson on trade issues.

Since Ambassador Kirk was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in March 2009, he has led USTR in developing trade policies that are proactive, responsible, and more responsive to our interests – recognizing that trade can be a job-creating pillar of economic recovery here and abroad.

Ambassador Kirk has directed USTR’s market-opening agenda through negotiations and dialogue with trading partners around the world. These initiatives include working to conclude and advance bilateral free trade agreements with Korea, Colombia, and Panama, advancing the ambitious regional Trans-Pacific Partnership talks, and sustaining serious U.S. engagement in the Doha round of multilateral negotiations at the World Trade Organization. Ambassador Kirk has also simultaneously pursued robust enforcement of America’s trade rights in support of U.S. businesses and workers, and he has focused efforts to better assist American small businesses seeking opportunities in international markets.

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• Former HEW, HHS Secretaries, Surgeons General And CDC Directors Urge Trade Representative To Comply With WTO Appellate Body Decision And Encourage FDA To Ban Menthol Flavoring In Cigarettes  

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 comply with the determination of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Appellate Body 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 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 Appellate Body decision upholding a WTO panel decision which found that by banning all 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 (TBT Agreement). The Appellate Body, like the panel before it, recommended that the WTO Dispute Settlement Body ask the United States to conform the Act with its obligations under the TBT Agreement and accord menthol and Indonesian clove cigarettes like treatment in recognition of their being like products.

The Citizens' Commission urged Ambassador Kirk to comply with the Appellate Body's ruling and ask the FDA to ban menthol cigarettes.

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U.S. loses Indonesia clove cigarette appeal at WTO 

South Korea: ‘KT&G Sangsang Univ.’ employs education for marketing  

• Companies push to keep tobacco in trade agreement  

Companies that buy Dan River Region tobacco want to make sure the crop isn't left out of a free trade agreement in negotiation right now between the United States and eight other countries in the Pacific Rim.

"We would be handing over our market share to some other tobacco-producing country," said President Tommy Bunn of U.S. Tobacco Cooperative, which buys tobacco in Danville and contracts mostly for export trade.

Health advocates are pushing to leave tobacco out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement as cutting tariffs and reducing cigarette prices would undercut their efforts to reduce smoking worldwide.

Tobacco companies like Philip Morris International are lobbying hard to keep tobacco in negotiations that would mutually eliminate tariffs and other barriers. Virginia and North Carolina leaders and agricultural groups have sent letters to U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk asking for tobacco to be included, as it has been in past free trade agreements, because doing so would hurt U.S. tobacco growers.

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New generation free trade agreements threaten progressive tobacco and alcohol policies  

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• Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement threatens public health 

An editorial to be published by the scientific journal Addiction has been made available online, revealing that negotiations are underway behind closed doors for a far-reaching new trade and investment agreement that could tie the hands of governments' future alcohol and tobacco control policies in perpetuity.

According to editorial author Jane Kelsey, Professor of Law at the University of Auckland, the nine-country Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) currently being negotiated between Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, United States and Vietnam, with Canada, Japan and Mexico in the wings, aims to set a 'gold standard' for removing barriers to the global alcohol and tobacco industries and give them greater leverage over domestic policy decisions. The goal is to produce a state-of-the-art agreement that other states in the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) grouping will adopt, culminating in a Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific.

The draft TPPA text is secret, aside from chapters and background documents that have been leaked. Despite the secrecy, Kelsey says it is clear that the cumulative effect of its substantive rules and procedural requirements would shift the balance of policy-making power firmly in favour of transnational corporate interests. By ensuring that domestic alcohol and tobacco policy and regulation pose minimal impediments to global strategies, and that industry has a role in writing them, the draft TPPA threatens progressive public health policies. At its core, the TPPA threatens sovereignty and democratic governance. The problem is with the agreement itself.

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Garth George: Nico Nazis have really got me fuming 

I wonder how long it will take Mr Harawira and his ilk, including the Nico-Nazis' new reichsmarschall, Maori Party co-leader Tariana Turia, to understand that it is not cigarette manufacturers who kill thousands of New Zealanders; it is the smokers themselves who choose to inhale what can be a fatal product.

Mr Harawira's outburst is just more evidence that the principle of personal responsibility no longer applies in society. Someone or something else is always to blame. . . .

And I look with vast amusement upon the machinations of those whose lives are so empty that they have constantly to be telling others what they should or shouldn't be doing, backing their positions on their various soap-boxes often with shonky statistics which contain no hint of detailed scientific statistical evidence and which naive and gullible people accept without question. Now I don't blame Mr Harawira or Mrs Turia for trying to reduce the impact of tobacco on their momo iwi, for there is firm evidence that it is indeed a major health problem among them.

But they aren't going to succeed if all they can do is blame the tobacco companies, any more than they can blame the Maori obesity epidemic on fast-food retailers.

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Ambassador to US 'should be sacked'  

New Zealand's ambassador to the United States, Mike Moore, is facing calls for his sacking after hosting an event sponsored by a tobacco giant.

Mana Party leader Hone Harawira this morning hit out at Mr Moore, a former Prime Minister, for his decision to front the Governors and Ambassadors World Trade Reception on February 24.

Multi-billion dollar tobacco company Philip Morris was one of the event's key sponsors, along with Chevron, PhRMA and Target.

Having Mr Moore host the event undermined world-leading legislation aimed at making New Zealand smokefree by 2025, Mr Harawira said.

He called for Mr Moore to be fired from his post.

"Moore's attendance at this party is a slap in the face for all those who have worked hard to stop the tobacco companies killing thousands of New Zealanders every year, and an insult to those families who have lost loved-ones to the country's most addictive drug."

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Fuming Harawira wants Moore sacked  

Mana Party leader Hone Harawira is calling for New Zealand's ambassador to the United States, Mike Moore, to be sacked after hosting an event sponsored by a tobacco giant.

Mana Party leader Hone Harawira yesterday hit out at Mr Moore, a former Prime Minister, for his decision to front the Governors and Ambassadors World Trade Reception on February 24.

Multi-billion dollar tobacco company Philip Morris was one of the event's key sponsors, along with Chevron, PhRMA and Target.

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