U.S. Engagement in International Tobacco Control

Greater U.S. engagement in international tobacco control efforts could bring benefits for global health on issues relating to surveillance and monitoring, illicit trade, and product regulation. Engagement could also benefit the United States in at least three ways. First, U.S. engagement with new international negotiations concerning illicit trade in tobacco products could ultimately help reduce domestic tax evasion and improve national security by addressing this trade as a potential source of funding for terrorist organizations and organized crime. Second, international efforts relating to product regulation could feed into proposed U.S. regulatory processes and increase the chance of international standardization. Third, long-term and serious engagement with tobacco control could provide a significant payoff in restoring the U.S. reputation on tobacco issues, a reputation badly tarnished by past U.S. support for the expansion of tobacco markets in developing countries. To be taken seriously, however, the United States would have to begin with Senate ratification of the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control and by being sensitive to foreign health authorities’ use of the convention as an advocacy tool in their own domestic debates on tobacco control.