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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs
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To: RMF who wrote (36566)8/27/2009 2:40:00 PM
From: TimF  Read Replies (1) of 71588
 
Actually imposing the policy would be something the drug companies could go to the WTO (or to the US government to try to pressure Canada because of NAFTA, WTO, and other reasons).

Making the threats, not so much (at least for the WTO).

But the threats don't even have to be directly made. They are implicit in the combination of the powers of the Canadian (or any other) government combined with the long term willingness of Canada to use various measures to keep drug prices low.

The Canadian national and provincial governments control the drug market in Canada. American drug companies can refuse to sell under the conditions the governments lay out, but if they do the governments can say "we won't let Canadians lose access to important drugs", and use that as a justification for compulsory licensing (at least for life saving drugs that don't have good alternatives). Under such circumstances the WTO might not try to do anything, or Canada might ignore it if they do (the WTO doesn't have a lot of direct power).

The US government (with or without the support of the WTO), might try exercising a trade war, but might not, esp. if the Canadians where really firm on this issue, since a trade war would hurt us as well, and since Obama doesn't seem to want to be very confrontational with other countries, and since he seems to want to get drug prices down as well.
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