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NAFTA reset must protect access to lifesaving medicines

Just Foreign Policy

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5-23-17

The Trump administration has formally notified Congress it will be renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). NAFTA has made it easier for corporations to attack laws and regulations enacted to protect our environment, workers' rights, and public health.

In particular, NAFTA strengthened the government-granted monopoly power of patent-protected brand-name pharmaceutical companies, at the expense of the public interest in ensuring lifesaving medicines are available to those who need them.

We're joining with a big coalition to try to shape this NAFTA reset to promote public interests, unlike the original NAFTA.

Tell the U.S. Trade Representative now: Replace NAFTA with a deal that advances public interests in all three countries, not the interests of corporations.

Here are some key reforms we want USTR Robert Lighthizer to advocate in the NAFTA renegotiation:

- Eliminate the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) system, which allows corporations to sue governments to overturn public interest laws and regulations before a tribunal of corporate lawyers. These lawyers can order taxpayers to pay corporations unlimited sums of money, including for the purported loss of expected future profits.

- Include strong and enforceable labor and environmental standards.

- Eliminate rules that drive up the cost of life-saving medicines by giving pharmaceutical companies extended monopolies on drug patents.

Tell USTR: Replace NAFTA with a deal that protects access to lifesaving medicines.

Thanks for all you do to help make U.S. foreign policy more just,

Robert Naiman, Avram Reisman, and Sarah Burns

Just Foreign Policy

http://justforeignpolicy.org/