The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is quietly participating in a global campaign to support and defend the tobacco industry, which is facing a barrage of anti-smoking legislation worldwide,
according to The New York Times.
With the support of American business, the tobacco lobby sought the assistance of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to combat the backlash against tobacco products, both domestically and overseas, according to the newspaper.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk has acknowledged that a complaint from the U.S. Chamber was behind his country’s legal challenge, in Australia, over Australia enacting anti-smoking laws there, according to the Times.
Ukraine is not an exception.
"In the capitals of far-flung nations, the chamber lobbies alongside its foreign affiliates to beat back anti-smoking laws," the Times reports.
The U.S. Chamber’s "country-by-country lobbying strategy" includes involvement in such places as the Philippines, Nepal, Jamaica, Moldova, El Salvador and Uruguay. The chamber reportedly warns nations about the perils of increasing the cigarette tax and placing graphic warning labels on the products.
The impetus, according to the Times, is a 2005 global treaty
— negotiated by the World Health Organization and ratified by 179 countries
— that "mandates anti-smoking measures" and "seeks to curb the influence of the tobacco industry in policy making."
Countries not participating in the treaty include the U.S., Cuba and Haiti.
The chamber’s position is that countries’ economic health is contingent upon the protection of tobacco companies, according to the Times.
There are more than 100 foreign affiliates worldwide, which pay dues and adhere to the U.S. Chamber’s strategy, according to the Times. In return, those affiliates receive "'access to the U.S. Embassy,' according to the Cambodian branch, and entree to 'the U.S. government,' according to the Azerbaijan branch," the newspaper reports. "Members in Hanoi get an invitation to an annual trip to 'lobby Congress and the administration' in Washington."
At home, the chamber’s chief executive, Thomas Donohue, is personally involved in the lobbying effort to "defend the ability of the tobacco industry to sue under future international treaties, notably the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade agreement being negotiated between the United States and several Pacific Rim nations."
The chamber declined to tell the Times whether it supports "measures to curb smoking," but issued a statement that it "regularly reaches out to governments around the world to urge them to avoid measures that discriminate against particular companies or industries, undermine their trademarks or brands, or destroy their intellectual property."