Mozambique has democratized extensively since the 1980s, and I believe that a free trade deal would benefit both Atlasia and Mozambique. However, I am wary about the intellectual property protections included in this bill, as I fear that they may benefit industries like pharmaceutical companies at the expense of working Atlasians. Such protections, which are basically a form of protectionism that still manage to be included in free trade deals like the TPP, could serve to continue the troubling trend of increasing income inequality in Atlasia.
I agree with Senator Wallace that big pharma wields way to much power through its IP. I was very pleased when this body recently passed patent reform and medicine reform, and I believe that (assuming the house passes them as well) they will result in lower medicine prices as drug patent protections are weakened. To ensure that those benefits are realized by ALL consumers, instead of just the Atlasian ones, this treaty is worded so that mozambique only needs to comply with whatever law is current for Atlasia. That means when the house does pass those pending reforms, they will apply to Mozambique as well.
Add in the additional scale economies of Mozambique customers and big pharma would probably just decide that the easier wau to make more money is consolidating and focusing on delivering more product to make that money. That drops prices, so things like epi-pens will go from $300 per dose to $25 per dose. I could buy Epinephren for "veterinary uses" for $4 per unit online, and its 3 x as much as what's in an epi-pen, and its not like they have separate factories for dog medecine and people medecine. The price difference is a product of evergreen patents which will soon be restricted under the future changes. So the minimum entry price will soon be the same between the 2 countries.
I would argue that the bigger cost barrier to medicine reaching the Mozambique market would be transportation costs. The financing provisions in section 7 of this treaty should help by opening up credit for mozambique importers or wholesalers, and I believe Senator Scott is currently working on a bill that would reform export financing in Atlasia which will also help, but without more boat shipping it would still be costly to move medicine to an isolated market. Thats why this administration is working hard to expand trade to Sub-Saharan africa.This administration is currently talking to malawi and has future meetings planned once the GM confirmation is complete. That increase in scale will make shipping more common.
So in conclusion, I believe that this trade agreement will lead to lower prices.
I don't have a bill like that in the works. My understanding was that the executive branch levied more influence over trade policy specifics
(and I didn't want to introduce anything that could potentially jeopardize existing trade agreements anyway, although we should assess which of our current trade deals are fair and which ones aren't and should be renegotiated).
