Are we Trumped

[Neferti]

What about Indians with 12 toes? I am sure somebody told us that his wife had that ....

[DrMattus]

China, India ...etc don't do free trade.

China and India have exclusions in their intellectual property laws with regards to medicines. That is, their right to produce generic versions of patented US drugs is enshrined in their constitutions.

Attempts by the USA to put a stop to this through the Hague have failed, with the UN international court defending the generic drug exclusion. This is not surprising as much of the UN member states benefit greatly from the cheap generic drugs that China and India pump out.

So the USA make sure that respecting the international patents of US pharma is part of any free trade agreement they offer. But China and India won't sign as their entire generic drug market would collapse. Third world Africa won't signed unless openly bribed, because they need access to cheap generic medicines.

Australia is happy to sign because we already respect international patents, and increased trade with the US is nice. Indeed medicines is our second largest technology export (up there with cars and wine. Yes wine is a technology export somehow). So we would benefit by having the undercutting Indian and Chinese generic exports shut down.