Washington D.C. – In response to reports that the U.S. Government will engage in negotiations at the World Trade Organization on a waiver for COVID-19 vaccines, National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC) President Rufus Yerxa released the following statement:
“Businesses support concrete policy efforts that have the potential to save lives and address the global COVID-19 crisis. We know more can be done by the private sector and governments to make vaccine distribution more equitable.
“But there is a deep concern with efforts to engage long-standing opponents of intellectual property in an exercise that could fundamentally weaken the global IP framework without contributing solutions to the COVID-19 crisis.
“We have confidence that America’s top trade diplomats will maintain a strict focus on supporting innovative industries’ ability to respond to this and future crises, and reject efforts to use the pandemic as an excuse to undermine IP.”
###
About the NFTC
Serving America’s Global Businesses Since 1914– The National Foreign Trade Council (www.nftc.org) is a leading business organization advocating an open, rules- based global trading system. Founded in 1914 by a broad-based group of American companies, the NFTC now serves its member companies through its office in Washington D.C.
