Jul 15, 2018 By Richard Robbins 4 min read

For yet more proof that the Trump administration has abandoned the traditional government role of oversight to form an unholy alliance with private enterprise, you need not look further than a recent meeting of World Health Organization (WHO) affiliates.

At a gathering in Geneva of the World Health Assembly, the WHO’s decision-making body, the U.S. tried its best to beat back efforts by governments from around the world to promote breast-feeding in the place of commercially-produced substitutes, apparently in service to the baby formula industry here and in Europe.

This was not the first time the administration has sided with business and against peoples’ well-being.

In the negotiations to hammer out a retooled North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Canada and Mexico, the United States has insisted the three countries ban the labeling of sugary and fatty foods as unhealthy.

This at a time when there is a broad consensus that sugar-laced beverages and items such as fast-food hamburgers and fries are among the main culprits in the continent’s expansive obesity problem and attendant diabetes crisis.

The administration’s shenanigans in Geneva included threats to withhold aid from Ecuador, a sponsor of the breast-feeding resolution.

A British health advocate, Patti Rundell of Baby Milk Action, called the threats “blackmail,” pure and simple. The U.S. was “trying to overturn 40 years of consensus” on the science of the superiority of mother’s milk over processed milk for infants, Rundell told the New York Times.

Coming to the rescue of the resolution was … Russia. Yes, Russia.

A Russia delegation said, “We’re not trying to be a hero here, but we feel that it is wrong when a big country tries to push around a small country, especially on an issue that is really important to the rest of the world.”

Talk about role-reversal!

Administration officials did not attempt to threaten Russia, either because there was no credible threat they could use or just because it was Russia, yada, yada, yada.

Those in charge of the meeting in Geneva turned initially to other Latin America countries and then to countries in Africa, hoping to find a resolution-sponsor once Eucador backed out. But spooked by the power wielded by the Americans, they too declined, the Times reported.

Delegates were described as “shocked” by the actions of the United States, which also tried to put the World Health Assembly on record against a resolution addressing the deleterious effects on young children of certain types of food products.

It needs to be noted that sales of infant milk substitutes in the United States, as well as in other parts of the developed world, have flattened out in recent years, as more and more mothers nourish their infants the old-fashion way.

The four percent growth in baby food industry sales estimated for 2018 is expected to come from countries in the developing world, the Times said

As for the NAFTA renegotiations, the paper revealed earlier this year that one of the major roadblocks to agreement has been the Trump administration insistence that a new accord stand against the placement of warning labels on foods and drinks that are deemed unhealthy.

Looking to Chile, Mexico in particular wants to be able to label foods based on their sugar and fat content — foods that are widely seen as complicit in the obesity epidemic and in the costly and deadly increase in the number of diabetes cases that the country is experiencing.

In 2016, Chile undertook a rigorous labeling effort that included stark warnings to consumers, akin to the labels placed on tobacco products. By most accounts, the warnings have been a great success in slowing the Chilean diabetes slide.

In this instance, as elsewhere, the interests of the Trump administration and private business appear to be running on parallel tracks. The Grocers Manufacturers Association, whose members include Coke and Pepsi, told the Times that it “supports a modernized NAFTA” — one that “will ensure standards based on science, minimize unnecessary trade barriers and benefit consumers in all three countries.”

“What’s good for General Motors is good for America” was a mantra of the 1950s. In the 1920s, the coda of the Coolidge administration was “The business of America is business.”

The Trump administration appears to have embraced both concepts. That shouldn’t surprise anyone. At its center beats the heart of a New York City realtor-tycoon who’s accustomed to dealing in dollars and cents and who apparently sees little profit in a healthy populace.

Richard Robbins lives in Uniontown and is the author of two books — Grand Salute: Stories of the World War II Generation and Our People. He can be reached at dick.l.robbins@gmail.com.