Why won’t USTR strengthen medical supply chains with America’s allies?

In a recent comment letter to President Biden’s trade ambassador, PhRMA encourages the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) to strengthen medical supply chains by negotiating meaningful trade agreements with trusted trading partners, including the European Union, Japan and the United Kingdom. Unfortunately, USTR consistently has rejected opportunities to do so — even as the Administration more broadly has expressed a desire to strengthen medical supply chains with U.S. allies.

Meanwhile, strong bipartisan support in Congress exists for the proposed Medical Supply Chain Resiliency Act, which would authorize the President “to enter into trade agreements … with respect to medical goods to contribute to the national security and public health of the United States.” Support for the legislation was evident in recent congressional hearings, during which both Democrats and Republicans pressed USTR Katherine Tai on how her agency plans to strengthen medical supply chains with U.S. allies and other “trusted trade partners.”

Unfortunately, USTR’s current trade policies fail to promote this bipartisan goal due to the agency’s:

• Refusal to negotiate meaningful trade agreements with close economic partners;
• Pursuit of unambitious dialogues that exclude commercially meaningful issues;
• Unwillingness to dismantle foreign governments’ trade barriers at the World Trade Organization;
• Failure to adequately protect American intellectual property from unfair use by economic competitors abroad; and
• Refusal to eliminate tariff barriers that impede biopharmaceutical supply chains.

If USTR genuinely intends to “advance supply chain resilience in trade negotiations” — as the agency’s request for comments states — then USTR first must undertake trade negotiations. In so doing, USTR should enhance regulatory cooperation, prioritize intellectual property and eliminate barriers to trade in medicines, inputs and related goods. Despite USTR’s misguided views, further enhancing the resilience of U.S. supply chains cannot be achieved absent an ambitious, pro-innovation trade agenda.