South Korea, Japan, Thailand and Taiwan were all threatened with trade sanctions and forced to change policies that were reducing tobacco consumption in order to open their markets to American tobacco companies. Shortly after taking office, the Clinton administration conducted a review of U.S. trade policy with regard to tobacco and made two important changes. First, it included representatives of the Department of Health and Human Services in all trade deliberations concerning tobacco to ensure that public health concerns were fully considered. Second, it adopted a policy later incorporated into an Executive Order that instructed U.S. officials not to take any action that promotes the use of manufactured tobacco products overseas. The Executive Order states that in the implementation of international trade policy, executive departments and agencies shall not promote the sale or export of tobacco or tobacco products, or seek the reduction or removal of foreign government restrictions on the marketing and advertising of such products.
Few countries are in a position to stand up to the threat of trade sanctions from the United States.
The stakes are high. As smoking rates decline in the West, U.S. tobacco manufacturers are aggressively recruiting new smokers in developing nations. The World Bank estimates that between 80,000 and 100,000 children become addicted to cigarettes every day worldwide. Already, tobacco kills about four million people every year around the globe. Based on current trends, the World Health Organization predicts that tobacco will kill ten million people per year by 2030, with 70 percent of those deaths occurring in developing countries.