The COVID-19 crisis revealed how reliant the United States has become on imported masks, respirators and other essential medical goods. The latest news is about medicine shortages. 

Decades of bad trade and tax policies have incentivized pharmaceutical corporations to outsource the production of many categories of drugs – and also production of the Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) that are drugs’ key ingredients. Most APIs come from just two countries, China and India. As workers there have fallen ill and plants have been closed for social distancing, production has dropped. In many categories, there is no domestic production to make up the difference.

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Episode Transcript Here.

Music: Groove Grove by Kevin MacLeod Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3831-groove-grove License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Today, instead of corporations unilaterally deciding where and when to sell every product, governments worldwide are doing what many expected of them all along - prioritizing residents’ needs and securing medical goods. In this episode Lori explains why such reasonable conduct is actually forbidden by trade agreements and what changes are needed to create a more resilient, equitable global economy.

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Episode Transcript Here. 

Music: Groove Grove by Kevin MacLeod Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3831-groove-grove License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

With everyone rightfully focused on fighting COVID-19, corporate lobbyists are hard at work pushing for more of the same failed trade policies that helped create the unreliable supply chains now failing us all. We dive into a couple of their latest attempts, including proposed free trade deals with Kenya and the UK and efforts to use stealthy World Trade Organization talks to limit regulation of monopolistic online platforms and climate-killing energy firms.

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Episode Transcript Here.

Music: Groove Grove by Kevin MacLeod Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3831-groove-grove License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Trade expert Lori Wallach breaks down how corporate-led globalization has fueled shortages in our medical supply-chains and limited our ability to fight against coronavirus. 

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Episode Transcript Here. 

Music: Groove Grove by Kevin MacLeod Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3831-groove-grove License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/