In a letter dated 16 February 2012 the Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance (SEATCA) urged American President Obama to keep tobacco out of the developing Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement.

Obama announced in November of 2011 that he thought the free trade agreement would boost American exports to a region that he said represented more than 40 per cent of global trade.
SEATCA wants to make sure that tobacco is not among the increasing flow of exports. In its letter SEATCA said it is "not enough to have free and fair trade, we need safe trade too and the tobacco business is not a safe trade. We are appealing to you to carve out tobacco from the TPP."
The TPP would reduce trade barriers between 9 countries – the United States, Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam – to encourage economic integration in the Asia-Pacific.
Some economists have pointed out that rising cigarette consumption had been linked to freer trade, with the biggest impact on low- and middle-income countries whose markets may have been more protected previously. Authors of the book Tobacco Control in Developing Countries, which was published in 2000 on behalf of the World Bank, found that after countries' tobacco markets were open, the market share of US cigarettes rose sharply.
In the letter, SEATCA Director Bungon Ritthiphakdee pointed out the same trend. "In the 1980s the US government through the Trade Representative Office priced open Asian markets which resulted in tobacco use increasing in Asia," she wrote. "We do not want a repeat performance of the US tobacco business might upon Asia." (pi)