Profile: Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR)

The Reagan administration’s Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) pressures several countries—under threat of sanctions—to open their markets to American cigarettes: Japan in September 1986, Taiwan in late 1986, and South Korea in May 1988. By 1991, sales of American cigarettes in these new markets are 600 percent higher than they would have otherwise been without US intervention, according to the Boston-based National Bureau of Economic Research. The Bureau also notes that American tobacco companies’ cheap prices and sophisticated advertising campaigns increased average cigarette consumption per capita by nearly 10 percent in the targeted countries. Much of the new demand for cigarettes was created among women and young people. [Washington Post, 11/17/1996; South-North Development Monitor (SUNS), 8/8/2000]