Health experts call for changes to US-Mexico-Canada Agreement in upcoming review
Contact: Cassidy Parshall, cassidy@uaem.org
How to End USMCA Threats to Public Health, From UAEM and 30+ Organizations
For Immediate Release: November 3, 2025
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM) joined 30 public health, faith, and other civil society organizations across North America in submitting a joint comment to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative for the upcoming review of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) that replaced NAFTA. They outlined essential changes needed to remove terms that limit access to lifesaving medicines.
“Trade agreements must not stand in the way of health and access to medicines,” the comment reads. “As such, there is an urgent need for the U.S., Mexico, and Canada to revise the USMCA to remove extreme intellectual property provisions that keep medicines prices high, discourage competition, and ultimately impede availability and access to medicines.”
The groups call for the elimination of the agreement’s entire intellectual property chapter, or at least for revisions to key rules that lengthen pharmaceutical monopolies and delay access to cheaper generics, such as patent term extensions, market exclusivity, and patent linkage.
Signers include the Communications Workers of America (CWA), Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders USA (MSF), Health GAP, Misión Salud, National Nurses United, NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice, People’s Health Movement - USA, Public Citizen, Social Security Works, and many more.
Cassidy Parshall, UAEM North America Program Manager, remarked:
“The initial USMCA that Trump brought to Congress in his first term was full of pharma giveaways to keep medicine prices sky-high. Civil society and congressional leaders successfully demanded removal of most of those pharma-friendly rules, but more work is still needed, as this comment explains.
“The pharmaceutical industry wants to take us backward, as shown in PhRMA’s comment calling for a revival of the rules in the dead-on-arrival 2018 deal. Will Trump side with Big Pharma or with patients when reviewing the USMCA?”
Further reading:
Essential Changes Needed to the USMCA to Remove Impediments to Public Health by Public Citizen & Health GAP
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