Letter to Hon. Joe Biden, President - Reduce Medical Trade Barriers to Help Mitigate Spread of COVID-19

Letter

Dear Mr. President,

We are encouraged by the progress your Administration has made galvanizing
international support for the global fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. As you have
recognized, the U.S. has a moral obligation to lead the world in rapidly providing COVID
vaccines to nations in need of these lifesaving shots, even as we provide vaccines to our own
citizens. Your recent success at the UN General Assembly Vaccine Summit, during which
leaders agreed to provide additional doses and funding for COVID response and the United
States committed to a purchase of an additional 500 million doses, building on the world's
largest-ever purchase and donation of vaccines by a single country, will surely be instrumental in
spurring vaccinations in low- and lower-middle income nations, and, along with efforts to
distribute medical devices, diagnostics, and other critical goods, will help to mitigate the spread
of the COVID-19 virus and curb the pandemic around the world.

To complement these efforts, we urge you to work with allies to reduce or eliminate trade
barriers to health products, including inputs used in vaccine manufacturing, vaccine distribution
and approval, therapeutics and pharmaceuticals, diagnostics, personal protective equipment and
medical devices. Some of the most intractable barriers affecting these products include tariffs,
export restrictions, and customs red tape, which were highlighted by the WTO in its recent
publication, "Indicative List of Trade-Related Bottlenecks and Trade-Facilitating Measures on
Critical Products to Combat COVID-19." In a July statement of the Multilateral Leaders Task
Force on COVID-19, the heads of the World Health Organization, the World Trade
Organization, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank urged governments to
address supply chain and trade bottlenecks. Breaking down these barriers and thereby enabling
the quick and efficient distribution of vaccines and other medical goods around the globe will
help us begin to put this pandemic in our rear-view mirror.

Negotiations at the World Trade Organization under the auspices of the trade and health
initiative offer a critical path to achieve this objective. Several U.S. allies, including the
European Union, Canada, and Japan, have put forward proposals to address export restrictions,
reduce tariffs, and address other roadblocks. While the United States has offered a proposal to
accelerate implementation of the Trade Facilitation Agreement, which we regard as a positive
step, it has not yet tackled these other critical issues. To complement the work underway at the
WTO, the U.S. should also play a leadership role in regional efforts, including in the AsiaPacific and with the European Union. U.S. leadership on eliminating trade barriers to critical
goods would provide a much needed boost for global cooperation on pandemic response.

The country has made great strides under your leadership managing the U.S. pandemic
response. Working together, with the kind of smart policies detailed above, we are confident you
can also lead the world in ending the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sincerely,

Source