Is This The Return Of U.S. ‘Gunboat Diplomacy’ Serving Foreign Corporations? [View all]

[eridani]

http://www.nationofchange.org/news/2016/05/13/return-u-s-gunboat-diplomacy-serving-corporations/

The World Health Organization has declared Gleevec as an “essential drug.” A year’s supply of Gleevec costs twice the national income per capita. The extraordinarily high monopoly pricing of this drug creates a health emergency in Colombia. The World Trade Organization rules allow countries to do this in the case of health emergencies.

This year the Colombian government agreed to do this, issuing a “compulsory license” enabling local production of a generic form of the drug.

There are indications that right after Colombia enabled local production of a generic version of Gleevec, the U.S. government stepped in to protect pharmaceutical industry profits by threatening to withdraw funding for a peace initiative between the Colombian government and the rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and threatening the country’s involvement in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

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Has the “Swiss” firm Novartis becomes the 21st-century version of United Fruit and ITT? At least they were “American” companies. This time the U.S. appears to be engaging in gunboat diplomacy in support of multinational corporations in general.