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Americans who begin smoking before turning 21 have the hardest time quitting, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Almost a quarter of American high school students smoke cigarettes, and the CDC finds that 30% of them will continue smoking and die earlier than their peers. Studies have shown that teens are more attracted to candy and sweet flavored cigarettes, so in 2009 the US banned the sale of these gateway tobacco products as part of the Family Smoking and Prevention Tobacco Control Act. However, last week the World Trade Organization ruled on appeal that the ban violates a provision of the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade, after Indonesia argued that the law discriminated against its clove cigarettes. The US was given 60 days to drop the ban, or potentially face sanctions.

The US is currently appealing two other WTO decisions issued last year that would overturn consumer and environmental protections under the TBT provision. In one case, brought by Mexico and Canada, the WTO ruled that country-of-origin labels on meat were found be a technical barrier to trade. In the second case up for appeal, the WTO ruled that dolphin safe labels on canned tuna are discriminatory after Mexico challenged the voluntary labeling system in place since the 1990s.

The group Public Citizen has been monitoring these WTO challenges to US law and calls the ability of the body to undermine public policy “corporate backdoor deregulation.”

Meanwhile, President Obama has been holding secretive meetings with the leaders of nine nations to negotiate a new trade deal called the Trans-Pacific Partnership. According to Public Citizen the TPP is poised to expand anti-consumer trade provisions.

GUEST: Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch

Find out more at www.tradewatch.org.