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A8 | WEDNESDAY, MARCH 14, 2012 | THE COURIER-JOURNAL FROM PAGE ONE | courier-journal.com KY
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The Obama administra-tion has not yet said whatit intends to do.
U.S. Trade Representa-tive Ron Kirk was non-committal when pressedon the issue by Kentucky’sRep. Geoff Davis, R-4thDistrict, at a recent HouseWays and Means Commit-tee hearing.
“Let me make it clear:We have not (decided on)any proposal to excludetobacco or any product,”Kirk said. “I know there isgreat concern from theKentucky delegation.”
Davis and the rest ofthe state’s congressionaldelegation urged the ad-ministration as long ago asOctober to avoid exclud-ing any specific productsfrom trade deals.
“Kentucky is one of thelargest tobacco-producingstates with tobacco leafproduction supportingthousands of jobs acrossthe commonwealth,” thedelegation wrote to Kirk.Other congressional dele-gations from tobaccostates, including NorthCarolina, Ohio and Vir-ginia, wrote similar let-ters.
More than 80 percentof Kentucky’s tobacco isexported, so excluding itfrom the trade agreement“threatens our growers’business and could harmthe communities wherethey live and employ Ken-tuckians,” the letter said.
Economic impactRoger Quarles, presi-
dent of the Lexington-based Burley TobaccoGrowers Association, saidin an interview that tobac-co generates $350 millionto $400 million annually inthe Kentucky economy.
“If there are any tradeagreements that exist inthe world that benefit anagricultural commodity,then we should be includ-ed,” Quarles said. “We feellike American growersshould not be at a disad-vantage in relation to oth-er countries.”
In Frankfort, the Ken-tucky House and Senateapproved a resolution sup-porting the inclusion of to-bacco in trade agree-ments.
The resolution saidWashington should “holdfirm on the long-standingpolicy that trade agree-ments must be compre-hensive, to ensure that noagricultural products orcommodities, including to-bacco and tobacco prod-ucts, be removed in thename of public policy.”
“All elected officialshere realize the impor-tance of this issue,” saidstate Sen. Paul Hornback,a co-sponsor of the tobac-co resolution.
The Shelbyville Repub-lican has raised tobaccoon his family farm fordecades. He currentlydedicates 100 acres to theleaf, producing about250,000 pounds a year.
Hornback said he andother tobacco growers seethemselves as “in greatcompetition with the restof the world for our prod-uct.”
Deal this year?The 11th round of talks
on the trade pact, knownas the Trans-Pacific Part-nership Agreement, washeld recently in Mel-bourne, Australia. A finaldeal could come by year’send.
The trade deal — in-volving the United States,Australia, Brunei Darus-salam, Chile, Malaysia,New Zealand, Peru, Singa-pore and Vietnam —would eliminate 11,000 tar-iffs on a host of products.
But tobacco should notbe one of them, said Mat-thew Myers, president ofthe Campaign for Tobac-co-Free Kids.
“Free-trade agree-ments are designed to pro-mote the use of products,”he said in an interview.“And it is a goal of virtu-ally every country to re-duce tobacco use and re-duce the number of peoplewho die from tobacco use.
Those two don’t go togeth-er.”
The United States al-ready is committed to aninternational treaty to re-duce tobacco use world-wide, health groups andanti-smoking advocatespoint out.
In 2004, during the ad-ministration of PresidentGeorge W. Bush, the Unit-ed States signed the WorldHealth OrganizationFramework Convention onTobacco Control, a treatyaimed at dramaticallycurbing smoking and thedevastating diseases asso-ciated with it. The accordhas never been sent to theSenate for ratification.
The treaty was signedby 168 nations, includingall of the countries in theTrans-Pacific PartnershipAgreement talks.
Smoking’s effectsSmoking-related dis-
eases kill about 440,000Americans annually. Theworldwide use of tobaccokills 5 million people ev-ery year — that’s 1 in 10adult deaths, according tothe World Health Organi-zation.
Myers said the con-cerns about excluding to-bacco from the tradeagreement being negotiat-ed mask a larger problem.
“The tobacco manufac-turers have abused exist-ing free-trade agreementsto challenge lawful, bonafide public health mea-sures in countries aroundthe world,” he said.
In any case, Myerssaid, the tobacco farmersaren’t going to be hurt bythe new trade agreementbecause nothing in itwould hinder the export ofAmerican tobacco. Whateventually will reduce to-bacco exports is the grad-ual decline in smoking, hesaid.
Quarles acknowledgedthat if tobacco was exclud-ed from the trade treaty,“we’re not sure whatwould happen immediate-ly or down the road.”
But “we should havethe same opportunities asthe growers of soybeansor whatever crop youwant to pick in the UnitedStates,” he said.
Treaty issueThe Obama administra-
tion has been wrestlingfor many months with thetobacco issue in the tradetreaty.
“As you know, thereare ... concerns fromNGOs (non-governmentalorganizations) and thosein the health care fieldthat we not table anythingthat would restrict this ad-ministration, this Con-gress’s ability to regulatein the public health(field),” Kirk told the con-gressional committee.
“We are trying to seekthe proper balance,” hesaid, “with our stated ob-jective of having a high-standard, comprehensiveagreement in which ev-erything’s on the table andas few carve-outs as pos-sible and, at the sametime, maintaining thatcore underlying standardof all trade agreementsthat there would be non-discrimination, that wewould not treat othercountries’ manufacturers’products any differentlythan here.”
Just before the start ofthe winter meeting of theNational Governors Asso-ciation late last month,Kentucky Gov. Steve Be-shear was one of four gov-ernors joining New Zea-land Ambassador MichaelMoore as hosts at a “Gov-ernors and AmbassadorsWorld Trade Reception” inWashington.
Kirk was the featuredspeaker at the gathering,billed as an opportunity“to establish and strength-en the critical personalconnections” among stateofficials, industry and dip-lomatic representativesfrom nations who arelarge U.S. trading part-ners.
The event’s sponsorsincluded Philip Morris In-ternational, which sells to-bacco products in about
180 countries and in 2011had about a 16 percentshare of the cigarette mar-ket outside the UnitedStates, according to thecompany’s website.
Myers said Philip Mor-ris was attempting to in-fluence the outcome of thetrade-agreement negotia-tions. In a statement, hesaid the tobacco industryis “working aggressivelyto ensure that this agree-ment helps them open newmarkets for their deadlyproducts.”
Beshear backs cropAt the trade reception,
Beshear talked to Kirkabout the tobacco issue.
“The governor urgedthat the U.S. include Ken-tucky tobacco exports inthe Trans-Pacific Partner-ship Agreement,” saidKerri Richardson, Be-shear’s spokeswoman.“Tobacco remains an im-portant agricultural com-modity in Kentucky, andwe will continue to workwith other tobacco-export-ing states to encouragethe federal government toprovide access to thoseexport markets.”
Philip Morris said in astatement that “corporatesponsorship and atten-dance at events such asthis one is a common prac-tice for companies in theUnited States, includingtobacco companies, andwe believe our participa-tion was not inappropriatein any way.”
“We were one of 14 oth-er sponsors at an eventwhich we are proud tohave supported in thepast,” the company said.
Reporter James R. Carrollcan be reached at (703)854-8945.
TOBACCO: Role in trade deal at issueContinued from Page A1
BEIRUT — The Syrianarmy has recaptured mostof the northern rebelstronghold of Idlib nearthe Turkish border, push-ing hundreds of militarydefectors out of a majorbase they had held formonths.
Even so, pockets of re-sistance kept up theirfight on Tuesday.
The three-day opera-tion to capture the city fol-lowed a similar offensiveto dislodge rebels fromanother key piece of terri-tory it had controlled, theBaba Amr district in cen-tral Homs. The two victo-ries gave President Bash-ar Assad’s regime unmis-takable momentum as ittries to crush the rebels.
Another boost was apledge Tuesday from Syr-ia’s staunch ally Russiathat it will continue sellingweapons to the regime. Abid by U.N. envoy Kofi An-nan to broker a cease-fireand start negotiationsfailed over the weekend.
Still, internationalpressure is more intensethan ever, with the U.S.considering military op-tions. On Tuesday, theArab League chief saidthe regime’s killing of ci-vilians amounts to crimesagainst humanity, and hecalled for an internationalinquiry.
Activists reportedfresh violence in centralprovince of Hama nearHoms, the suburbs of Da-mascus and elsewhere,killing dozens.
New York-based Hu-
man Rights Watch saidtroops have planted landmines near Syria’s bor-ders with Turkey and Leb-anon along routes used bypeople fleeing to neigh-boring countries. Thegroup said the land mineshave already caused civil-ian casualties.
Human Rights Watchquoted a former Syrianarmy mine remover assaying that in early Febru-ary, he found land minesplanted at the border townof Hasanieih betweenfruit trees about threeyards from the border intwo parallel lines, eachabout 500 yards long.
The group also quoteda resident of the bordertown of Kherbet al-Joz assaying that for 20 days un-til March 1, he saw some50 soldiers putting in landmines starting from histown toward two other vil-lages. Both Kherbet al-Jozand Hasanieih border Tur-key.
Fresh from a mon-thlong campaign that
drove rebels out of BabaAmr in the city of Homs,Assad’s forces launched asiege on the Idlib threedays ago. The city largelyhad been under control offighters for the rebel FreeSyrian Army.
The pro-governmentAl-Watan daily and theBritain-based Syrian Ob-servatory for HumanRights said governmenttroops were in control ofIdlib on Tuesday. The Ob-servatory said the armywas still facing some re-sistance pockets in threeIdlib areas, including thecentral neighborhoods ofDubait and Bustan Gha-noum.
Idlib, a predominantlySunni city of some 150,000people about 100 milesnorth of Homs, wasamong the first to fall inthe hands of army defec-tors last summer.
But witnesses havesaid this week that armydefectors in the city havebeen running out of am-munition.
Syrian regime capturesmost of rebel-held IdlibBy Bassem MroueAssociated Press
Rebels pause Sunday between firefights with the SyrianArmy in the town of Idlib. Government shells poundedthe city from dawn until evening. RODRIGO ABD/AP
Time: 03-13-2012 21:50 User: cdye PubDate: 03-14-2012 Zone: KY Edition: 1 Page Name: A 8 Color: CyanMagentaYellowBlack