WASHINGTON: United States business and agriculture groups have urged Pacific trading partners not to exclude tobacco from investment protection rules in a new free trade deal under negotiation, warning it would set a bad precedent.
The US Chamber of Commerce, American Farm Bureau Federation, National Association of Manufacturers, American Meat Institute and other organisations said they were “highly concerned” that tobacco might be excluded from investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
Dropping tobacco from ISDS would prevent tobacco companies from taking action against any TPP government under those legal protections.
In a letter sent late on Monday
to the US Trade Representative’s (USTR) office and the US ambassadors of the 11 other countries involved in the TPP talks, US groups said investment protections had not harmed any government’s ability to regulate in the public interest.
“We are, therefore, troubled that TPP negotiators may consider reversing course and seek to create an unnecessary, but highly damaging, carve-out to these basic and longstanding principles,” they said.
The USTR has said it has not presented any new proposal on tobacco and does not expect to do so at TPP negotiations taking place now in Australia, as it is still consulting with stakeholders. Reuters