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(Adds USTR statement, background)
WASHINGTON, May 5 (Reuters) - President Joe Biden on
Wednesday threw his support behind a proposed World Trade
Organization waiver of intellectual property rights for COVID-19
vaccines, bowing to mounting pressure from Democratic lawmakers
and more than 100 other countries.
Biden, who had backed a waiver during the 2020 presidential
campaign, voiced his support after a speech at the White House.
"Yes, I'm going to talk about that later today, yes," Biden
told reporters in reply to a question about whether he intended
to back the waiver.
Biden's chief trade negotiator, U.S. Trade Representative
Katherine Tai, issued a statement shortly after Biden spoke,
announcing the Biden administration's support for the proposed
measure, which would temporarily waive certain IP rights to help
countries respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“This is a global health crisis, and the extraordinary
circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic call for extraordinary
measures," Tai said in a statement.
"The Administration believes strongly in intellectual
property protections, but in service of ending this pandemic,
supports the waiver of those protections for COVID-19 vaccines."
Tai said the United States would participate in text-based
negotiations at the WTO to ensure the waiver could happen, but
cautioned those negotiations would take time.
WTO decisions require a consensus of all members.
The United States and several other countries had previously
blocked negotiations at the WTO about the waiver proposal led by
India and South Africa aimed at helping developing countries to
produce COVID-19 vaccines using the IP of pharmaceutical
companies.
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal, Steve Holland and Jeff Mason;
Editing by Peter Cooney)
