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Testimony of Richard Holcomb Deputy Chief Financial Officer U.S. Department of the Treasury . . .
the vast majority of the conferences we sponsor are either Internal Revenue Service or Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) events that focus on taxpayer advocacy, small business practitioner forums, or a specific sector such as the wine and alcohol industry. . . .
TTB provides technical advice to the USTR on how trade negotiations might impact the administration of US alcohol and tobacco laws and regulations, provides guidance to US industry members, foreign government officials, and the general public on US import/export rules for alcohol and tobacco, and facilitates the import/export trade in alcohol by educating the public on regulatory requirements for both US and foreign markets.
We consider both of these recurring sets of conferences and seminars as vital to the understanding of the rules and regulations pertaining to both individual taxpayers as well as the affected industry. We consider there is nothing more important than an informed public, particularly where it involves taxation and compliance.
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When US Ambassador to Thailand Ralph "Skip" Boyce led a peeved delegation of US companies - including Marlboro and big alcohol producers - to lodge their complaints with the Public Health Ministry about a national ban on cigarette advertisements and a pending one on liquor promotions, US commercial diplomacy toward Southeast Asia hit a new nadir.
If it seems odd that a senior US envoy would so publicly play the role of US corporate spokesman, that's because historically it is. But Boyce, a career diplomat who speaks fluent Thai and often portrays himself as a friend to the country, has perhaps more than any other senior US diplomat in Southeast Asia pushed forcefully President George W Bush's many controversial policies in the region - regardless of the moral consequences. . . .
Southeast Asian policymakers should bear in mind that very soon the US may not be as attractive a destination for their products as in the past. Collapsing housing prices and spiraling consumer and national debt levels promise to dry up America's once insatiable appetite for consumer goods. Rather, regional governments would be wise to expend their trade energies in forging closer ties with less demanding, higher-growth-potential China, India and petrodollar-rich Middle Eastern regimes, and less on deliberating unequal pacts with the US.
That way, when the likes of Ralph Boyce come knocking with US corporate demands, it will be that much easier for Southeast Asian governments to keep the door shut.
The lighter company, made famous during World War II, has filed a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission alleging violations of section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930. Zippo, and ZippMark, the company that owns the Zippo trademark, identified seven companies in its complaint that manufacture and/or sell lighters that look like Zippo lighters in the U.S.
"It is simply an action on our part to kind of focus Customs personnel on the fact that we have a trademark," Zippo Chief Executive Officer Greg Booth said. Manufacturers are "bringing these trademark and shape infringing (lighters) into the country.
The country's leading anti-tobacco body said Friday that US Ambassador to Thailand Ralph Boyce had breached the US State Department Directive on Tobacco Policy Abroad by leading a group of giant tobacco producers to meet with Public Health Minister Pinij Charusombat on Thursday.
The group, which included US giant Philip Morris (Thailand), complained to the minister about unequal controls on all forms of tobacco products with cigar and pipe tobacco being less restricted that cigarettes.
"I will ask my colleagues in the US to follow up on the matter," said Hatai Chitanondh, president of the Thailand Health Foundation, the kingdom's leading anti-tobacco group.
Youth anti-tobacco activists from around the world will march to the headquarters of the Motion Picture Association of American (MPAA) in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, July 13, and hold a press conference calling on the MPAA to take action to reduce smoking in the movies, including requiring an "R" rating for any movies with a non-historical depiction of smoking.
At noon Thursday, the youth will march to the MPAA headquarters, located at 1600 I St. NW, from the Washington Convention Center, where they will be attending the World Conference on Tobacco or Health. The march will follow the release of a study by the American Legacy Foundation earlier Thursday about the prevalence of smoking in movies popular with youth. That study will be released during a session of the World Conference from 10:30 a.m. to noon in Ballroom A of the Washington Convention Center.
The youth, from over 30 countries, will also march to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to call on the Administration to keep tobacco products out of trade agreements and to the White House to call on the U.S. and other countries to ratify the international tobacco control treaty, the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). . . .
The march will follow the release of a study by the American Legacy Foundation earlier Thursday about the prevalence of smoking in movies popular with youth. That study will be released during a session of the World Conference from 10:30 a.m. to noon in Ballroom A of the Washington Convention Center.
We are writing to urge that the U.S. exclude tobacco products from a U.S.-Malaysia Free Trade Agreement.
Our basic position is that there is no legitimate purpose for inclusion of tobacco products in trade agreements, which are designed to facilitate trade and remove tariff and non-tariff barriers to commercial transactions -- an inappropriate goal for tobacco products, consumption of which is harmful. This is a consensus view among the leading tobacco control groups in the United States.(1)
In these comments, we first very briefly review tobacco control efforts in Malaysia, and then explain why inclusion of tobacco products in the FTA would threaten such efforts.
I offer this update on the Ways and Means Committee hearing held earlier today.
I questioned Deputy U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwabb on provisions to reduce tobacco tariffs in the Oman-U.S. Free Trade Agreement and on other troublesome chapters. You can view and hear my questioning by clicking on the links below.
This link jumps directly to my questions on tobacco: http://www.house.gov/doggett/speeches/omantobacco040506.wmv
Now, in the wake of recent legal setbacks, Big Tobacco is picking up the pieces and moving on, and Philip Morris (now using the alias "Altria Group") is still out front. This was made clear last November when a Sunday edition of The Washington Post carried a 22-page, magazine-sized advertising insert (on thick, glossy paper) from your friends at Philip Morris U.S.A.
The package was a masterful work of "newspeak"--the language George Orwell invented in his dystopian novel 1984. Newspeak was used to control people's thoughts by redefining the words they used, so that "war" became "peace." Orwell's thought police also rewrote history so that whenever political alliances shifted, history books and newspaper archives were rewritten to prove that the new reality had always been the case. "We are at war with Eurasia. We have always been at war with Eurasia." Actually, on the Internet, this manipulation of the historical record would be much easier, and the Philip Morris ad booklet was mostly devoted to touting the contents of the company's new Web site.
Here are some Orwellian highlights from the site: Philip Morris U.S.A. endorses the findings of every surgeon general's report on the dangers of smoking all the way back to 1964. . . . Big Tobacco has always stood shoulder to shoulder with the public health community in the battle against smoking. War is peace. And, oh, by the way, love is hate. . . .
In the 1980s, the Reagan administration eliminated one barrier to corporate power when it effectively broke the U.S. trade union movement (anyone remember PATCO?). But ordinary citizens can still punish corporations, and perhaps influence their behavior, through the courts. The Bush II administration aims to eliminate that inconvenience. Next, no doubt, will come the sale of branding rights for the U.S. Capitol and the Washington Monument.
US lawmakers called on the White House to exclude tobacco products from a proposed pan-American free-trade pact because lower tariffs would make it easier for tobacco companies to recruit new smokers in Latin America.
"We urge you to insist that tobacco products, including cigarettes and smokeless tobacco, be excluded from this trade-promoting agreement," the lawmakers wrote in a letter co-signed to US President George W. Bush .
Representatives Henry Waxman of California, Lloyd Doggett of Texas and Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois made their plea as top trade officials from 34 countries prepared to meet in Miami later this week for the final phase of negotiations to establish the Free Trade Area of the Americas.
By the time the first organized demonstration wandered Tuesday into downtown Miami, police were more than ready to deflate it.
A ragtag group of demonstrators intent on protesting the easing of tobacco tariffs at the Free Trade of the Americas conference found themselves under the gaze of a hovering police helicopter. They had brought with them a large inflatable cigarette pack, but authorities quickly took exception to the gasoline-powered generator the protesters wanted to use.
So they were reduced to having a mock "die-in" around their deflated giant pack of Marlboros in front of the Torch of Friendship -- a stone's throw from where ministers from 34 countries are meeting this week to talk about erasing of trade barriers in the hemisphere.
"We're concerned about delivering our message," said Robert Weissman, co-director of the anti-smoking group Essential Action.
Miami has been transformed into an armed camp of police of just about every ilk in an effort to avoid violence that has marred other trade summits elsewhere.
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."
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]