[CTC] GTW: Biden-Merkel Summit Fail: German COVID WTO TRIPS Waiver Blockade Remains

Thu Jul 15 15:53:28 PDT 2021

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: July 15, 2021           CONTACT: Derrick Robinson,
drobinson at citizen.org

*Biden-Merkel Summit Fail: Pres. Biden Unable to End Germany’s Blockade
of COVID WTO TRIPS Waiver He Seeks to End Pandemic*

*WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Angela
Merkel held a news conference after their business meetings at the White
House. Germany has blocked 140 other nations, including the U.S., that seek
an emergency waiver of WTO-enforced intellectual property barriers that
limit greater production of COVID-19 vaccines and treatments necessary to
save millions of lives. Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch Director Lori
Wallach issued the following statement:*

“For Merkel to get a high-profile White House victory lap and have Pres.
Biden proclaim that she ‘never fails to stand for human dignity’ while
Biden has failed to get Merkel to stop blocking the WTO COVID vaccine
waiver delivers a punishing blow to efforts to end the pandemic, and it
comes in a week when COVID deaths have surged 40% in Africa over the
previous week, as the Delta variant is causing terrifying new waves of
preventable death throughout the developing world where very few people
have access to vaccines or any protection.

“Germany is directly undermining Biden’s notion that the two nations show
that ‘democracy is  delivering the needs of the people’ by blocking the
will of the majority of people in the world who want a waiver of
WTO-enforced monopolies that now empower Big Pharma to limit production of
the COVID-19 vaccines and treatments that are necessary to save the lives
and livelihoods of millions of people worldwide. That means the mRNA
vaccine technology that currently only the U.S. and Germany have approved
is inaccessible to most in the world while non-democracies China and Russia
are sharing their vaccine technology and financing new COVID manufacturing
plants around the world.

“People around the world dying for lack of vaccines were relying on Biden
to get Merkel to stop blocking the waiver given that he promised that if
elected president, he wouldn’t allow Big Pharma monopolies to block global
vaccine and treatment access. Biden’s inability to get Merkel to join him
in supporting the waiver means tens of millions of lives and livelihoods
worldwide are left in peril, including here, given that raging COVID
outbreaks anywhere increase the chances for an vaccine-resistant strain
emerging. We urge the president to redouble his efforts to get the waiver
enacted.

“With his support for the waiver, Biden showed the world the U.S. was back,
but to show global leadership, Biden had to get Germany to stop blocking
what he says is a U.S. priority to save tens of millions of lives. This
summit was a failure, and we urge Biden to prioritize getting the WTO
waiver enacted ASAP so more COVID vaccines and treatments can be produced
worldwide.

“Biden’s failure to move Merkel on the COVID vaccine waiver means he has a
lot more work to do to end the pandemic, and as far Merkel, the world
expected her to be leading with Biden, South Africa’s and France’s
presidents and India’s Prime Minister to unlock the greater global vaccine
and treatment production worldwide necessary to stop the pandemic, not
blocking the rest of the world and threatening to replace her
refugee-crisis-legacy as a humanitarian with the image of a Big Pharma
shill prioritizing corporate monopolies over millions of people’s lives.”

*Merkel’s U.S. visit was met with **dozens of  protests*
<https://www.citizenstrade.org/ctc/merkelprotests0715/>* organized by
Public Citizen, Citizens Trade Campaign and allied organization**,
including the chancellor being **directly challenged by protestors*
<https://twitter.com/WallachLori/status/1415715409836269572>* as she
arrived for an honorary degree at Johns Hopkins that **students petitioned
against*
<https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/angela-merkels-refusal-is-killing-millions-she-doesnt-deserve-an-honorary-degree/>*
given her waiver opposition, a **White House banner lift*
<https://apimages.photoshelter.com/galleries/C0000RBwJpp4Ypcc/G0000u5lz7eAuys0/Protests-against-Merkel-s-opposition-to-Covid-vaccine-waiver-during-DC-visit-wire>*
before she arrived and **die-in the day of the summit*
<https://apimages.photoshelter.com/galleries/C0000SRiGX3lf2FQ/G0000_YyX.BKDR2s/2021-07-15-Nationwide-Protests-of-Merkel-Visit-as-Germany-Blocks-WTO-Waiver-Sought-By-U-S-Wire>*,
a major **New York city protest*
<https://www.usatoday.com/videos/news/nation/2021/07/14/protesters-demand-patent-waivers-covid-vaccine/7969593002/>
*with
hundreds*
<https://truthout.org/articles/pfizer-is-upholding-global-vaccine-apartheid-today-we-risk-arrest-to-stop-it/>*
at the German UN mission and **protests at more than a dozen German
consulates nationwide*
<https://www.citizenstrade.org/ctc/blog/2021/06/22/demonstrations-against-vaccine-apartheid-planned-during-german-chancellor-merkels-visit-to-us/>*.
**Heads of major U.S. organizations wrote to Biden*
<https://www.citizen.org/article/letter-to-potus-on-chancellor-merkel-summit-and-covid-19-trips-waiver/>*
and **spoke at a press conference*
<https://www.citizen.org/article/video-press-conference-global-leaders-urge-merkel-biden-to-solve-trips-waiver-block/>*
to urge him to exert U.S. leadership at the summit and resolve the German
blockade. A **request by members of the U.S. House of Representatives*
<https://schakowsky.house.gov/media/press-releases/schakowsky-colleagues-request-meeting-merkel-discuss-european-union-blocking>*
for a meeting with Merkel on the issue was rejected. *

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