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Bush Administration Urged to Stop Prioritizing Corporate Profits Over People in WTO Negotiations Infact Joins with Allies Around World in Challenging WTO Policies at Cancun Talks FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: CONTACTS: BOSTON-- As another round of World Trade Organization (WTO) talks begin, the US-based corporate accountability organization Infact is urging the Bush administration to stop prioritizing the profits of giant corporations over the health and well-being of people around the world. The issue of agricultural subsidies will dominate the talks in Cancun. The Bush administration is being widely criticized for policies that protect powerful US farming interests, such as the cotton and sugar lobbies, at the expense of farmers in the world's poorest nations. Infact representatives in Cancun are joining with allies from around the world in calling for dramatic change in the WTO. "It is time for governments of wealthy countries like the US to hear the voices of people who are suffering so that giant corporations can increase their profit margins. People across the US and around the world are demanding that the Bush administration stop prioritizing the interests of Big Business over human health and the environment in arenas such as the WTO," says Infact Organizer Stacey Folsom from Cancun. The US and the EU are expected to face tough opposition in the trade talks this week. An alliance of developing nations-including South Africa, India, Brazil and Thailand-recently secured an agreement to expand access to medicines and will be pressing for major change in agricultural trade policies. Some of these same countries led a successful challenge to the US in recent negotiations on the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), the world's first public health treaty. The FCTC, which was unanimously adopted by the World Health Assembly in May, will change the way Big Tobacco operates globally. "The FCTC process provides a hopeful model for WTO talks. Throughout the negotiations on the tobacco treaty, the US pushed to prioritize free trade for corporations such as Philip Morris/Altria over public health protections, which would have undermined the very intent of the agreement. However the countries of Africa, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, the Pacific and Caribbean Islands united successfully to protect the health of their people from Big Tobacco's deadly expansion," says Infact Executive Director Kathryn Mulvey. ### Since 1977, Infact has been exposing life-threatening abuses by transnational corporations and organizing successful grassroots campaigns to hold corporations accountable to consumers and society at large. From the Nestlé Boycott of the 1970s and '80s over infant formula marketing, to the GE Boycott of the 1980s and '90s to curb nuclear weapons production and promotion, to the Boycott of Philip Morris/Altria's Kraft Foods, which contributed to the adoption of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC)--Infact organizes to win!
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