The US and infant formula industry’s bullying weakened safeguards for mothers and infants.
Yesterday, The New York Times exposed the Trump administration for bullying governments into weakening international safeguards that protect mothers and newborn babies from the infant formula industry’s deadly marketing. Kudos to our allies like Baby Milk Action for shining a light on this story.
This is a full-scale assault on the corporate accountability movement. Corporate Accountability began by launching a boycott of Nestlé for its agressive marketing of infant formula in the Global South. In partnership with powerful allies in the International Baby Food Action Network, we were a driving force behind the first-ever United Nations Code on Marketing — on breastmilk substitutes. As the Trump administration seeks to advance corporate interests and dismantle basic rights and protections for people, it’s no surprise that it is targeting the first and most basic international corporate accountability safeguards we fought for and won decades ago.
These actions are low and appalling. But they’re not new. For decades, huge corporations like Nestlé, Philip Morris International, and ExxonMobil have used the U.S. government to block and weaken international law to protect their profits at the expense of people. And the U.S. has for decades used bullying and brutal threats to get its way. Now, the Trump administration’s extreme alignment with corporations has shed a brighter light on this issue.
That’s where you come in. For more than 40 years, Corporate Accountability has been leading a movement of people like you stopping deadly corporations like Nestlé and the governments like the U.S. that do their bidding. Today, we’re building on our shared legacy of success to challenge industries like Big Tobacco and Big Polluters that — using the same tactics as the infant formula industry — collude with the U.S. and other powerful governments to protect profits over people.
We’re organizing with allies to hold transnational corporations, and the governments that do their bidding, accountable, and we need you with us now. Give now to ensure we have the resources we need.
This is a particularly egregious assault on global public health protections. And it’s about more than infant formula. This is exactly how the U.S. operates in other international policymaking spaces, from the U.N. climate treaty negotiations to the global tobacco treaty meetings.
But for over 40 years, with your support, we’ve been there to demand that policies protect people, not corporations. And we’ve won groundbreaking victories. We’ll keep bringing your voices into the U.N. and holding corporations accountable. Will you stand with us? Give now and your support will ensure that we can challenge Nestlé, strengthen lifesaving public health policies, and kick Big Polluters out of the climate treaty.
