Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is proposing a dangerous plan to allow the Secretary of Health and Human Services to “negotiate” drug prices for Medicare. The plan represents an agreement among all Democrats, including President Joe Biden and the usually more astute U.S. Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia.
Read MoreExecutive Director Kent Kaiser joined The Dave Elswick Show and The Steve Gruber Show to discuss fertilizer tariffs.
Read MoreOn Friday, June 17, encouraged by U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai, member states of the World Trade Organization (WTO) voted to remove intellectual property (IP) protections on COVID-19 vac
Read MoreIn October 2020, India and South Africa petitioned the World Trade Organization (WTO) to suspend certain provisions of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) in order to nullify intellectual property (IP) protections for COVID-19 treatments, vaccines, and diagnostics on the premise that IP rights were potential barriers to research and development, public-private collaborations, and access to COVID-19 products.
Read MoreAmerican broadband networks are among the best performing in the world. They showed their strength and reliability throughout the pandemic. Private investments into these networks have made them better performing and more affordable for broadband customers. Claims against these networks cite the higher prices of U.S. networks when compared to other nations, but this critique misses the bigger picture.
Read MoreFertilizer prices are skyrocketing as the Russian invasion of Ukraine continues. Reversing tariffs on reliable suppliers will provide relief to U.S. farmers suffering from high prices.
Read MoreThe Trade Alliance to Promote Prosperity and a coalition of more than 40 organizations has written to U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai and U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo to express opposition to undermining intellectual property rights that exist for COVID-19 vaccines under the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS)…
Read MorePursuing lower prescription drug prices for Americans is a laudable goal, but ransacking foreign medicine cabinets and importing market-distorting, socialist price controls are not the answers. TAPP wrote to U.S. Senators today to urge opposition to drug importation schemes and provide five key points on why drug importation is a bad idea for America…
Read MoreDue to the pandemic and several other factors, America’s farmers are facing near record-high fertilizer costs, supply chain issues, and labor shortages. The last thing they need is government interference in the marketplace that makes the situation worse.
The federal government’s decision last year to impose countervailing duties (“tariffs”) on Moroccan phosphate fertilizer imports blocked farmers’ access to the largest producer in the world and a longstanding, trusted supplier, which has contributed to skyrocketing prices for this key crop input…
Read MoreUnited States Trade Representative Katherine Tai recently announced that a “compromise outcome” was reached with the European Union, South Africa, and India on the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) waiver related to COVID-19 vaccines. The agreement on TRIPS protects intellectual property for COVID-19 treatments, vaccines, and diagnostics. The USTR’s action negates intellectual property rights.
The so-called compromise was made before informing Congress on the specifics of the text, violating the Transparency Principles USTR established in 2021. USTR Tai has gone rogue and totally disregarded her obligation to provide Congress all texts for trade proposals at the World Trade Organization. The guidelines are clear: “consultation and engagement is vital to ensuring that trade policy reflects American interests and American values.”
Read MoreApril 26 is World Intellectual Property Day. Started in 2000, World IP Day offers an opportunity to join with people around the world to consider how intellectual property (IP) enables and enlivens the innovation and creativity that drives human progress. World IP Day highlights the role that IP rights play in encouraging innovation and creativity…
Read MoreIn October 2020, India and South Africa petitioned the World Trade Organization (WTO) to suspend certain provisions of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) in order to nullify intellectual property (IP) protections for COVID-19 treatments, vaccines, and diagnostics on the premise that IP rights were potential barriers to research and development, public-private collaborations, and access to COVID-19 products…
Read MoreGlenn Hubbard’s new book, “The Wall and The Bridge: Fear and Opportunity in Disruption’s Wake,” is promoted as “an informed argument for an economic policy based on bridges of preparation and adaptation rather than walls of protection and exclusion.”
Read MoreThe Trade Alliance to Promote Prosperity and over 30 organizations have written a letter to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, urging him to oppose abuse of the Bayh-Dole Act's march-in provisions on the prostate cancer drug Xtandi…
Read MoreU.S. broadband networks are among the best in the world, but many Americans are still without adequate access. Low-income and rural communities lack the proper infrastructure needed for high-speed internet. Nearly a quarter of U.S. households do not have home internet.
Read MoreU.S. Representatives Peter DeFazio (D-OR), Lloyd Doggett (D-TX), and several of their Democratic colleagues have made an egregious request to the federal government to subvert the patent rights protecting the drug Xtandi, which is used to treat prostate cancer.
Read MorePrescription drug price-setting proposals keep coming up in Congress with the purported aim of lowering prescription drug prices and improving Medicare. In fact, the Biden administration’s Build Back Better Act (BBBA) contains such provisions, and some usually level-headed members of Congress have recently expressed openness to passing those drug price-setting provisions as a scaled-back, stand-alone bill. Yet all such proposals are selfishly shortsighted and ultimately lead to lower quality, fewer options, diminished health outcomes, and establish price controls that could exacerbate inflation or lead to shortages.
Read MoreThis week in Congress, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform is holding hearings about the Build Back Better Act (BBBA), including a hearing on drug pricing, about which language has been inserted into the bill. The Trade Alliance to Promote Prosperity has written to members of the committee to express opposition to the drug pricing language, because it constitutes yet another attempt to import socialist drug pricing policies from foreign countries.
Read MoreImposing price controls on American manufacturers would stifle medical innovation, kill jobs, and have a particularly negative effect on the health of our country’s most at-risk patients. Medical innovation is especially important now during a pandemic, and price controls would pull the plug on long-term funding for life-saving medicine research. The plan being considered in Congress would increase manufacturer liability substantially, and thereby disincentivize the development of new cures and limit doctors’ treatment options. These policies hurt American patients.
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Over the years, socialist drug price control proposals have appeared under a variety of names, with the purported aim of lowering prescription drug prices and improving Medicare. Most recently, and similarly to HR 3, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and others are again attempting disguise prescription drug price controls in the Build Back Better package to allow government the power to determine the price for lifesaving medicines.
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