Tag Archives: Maybarduk

The Washington Post on our work

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Adam Taylor covers our challenge to Trump’s foreign policy and the confidential deals the administration is negotiating in place of the health aid it destroyed. We have helped countries stand up and call for better terms. The deals are beginning to change. We do a lot of press, but this article focuses on our recent work and I thought I’d share. – Peter

Washinton Post: Trump administration’s secrecy on health deals alarms experts, governments

A dearth of information has been disclosed about the agreements, fueling speculation that the “America First” approach to foreign aid is exploitative.

April 6, 2026 / Adam Taylor

“…Public Citizen, a government watchdog group, has brought a lawsuit demanding access to some of the administration’s global health agreements, arguing that the State Department’s failure to produce the records in response to a Freedom of Information Act request is “unlawful.”

“The agreements’ public disclosure is essential “to understanding the new foreign aid structure” being built by the State Department and what the United States “expects, or extracts, in return,” said Peter Maybarduk, director of Public Citizen’s access to medicines group.

“… Public Citizen’s Maybarduk said that the strategy seems to be “divide and conquer the partners of the United States.” The Trump administration, he said, “is treating its negotiating partners as hostiles, and treating health aid a bit like conflict, as though every bit of U.S. negotiating advantage must be preserved through secrecy.”

Read Adam’s excellent article here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/04/06/trump-global-health-deals/

Aloha TPP

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Several years’ work has brought us finally to the island of Maui. Twelve nations have sent ministers and delegations here to attempt to conclude negotiations of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The U.S. government, pressed by business lobbies and their election spending, will ask … Continue reading →

Genève

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It is spring in Geneva in green and lavender bloom. Martin Khor tells us that the problem we have traveled here to address is among the most serious of our time. Martin directs the South Centre, supported by and advising … Continue reading →

Resist the Watch List

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Business interests lobby the US government to bully developing countries into changing their economic laws and practices so as to favor the commercial interests of multinationals. Unfortunately this can come at the expense of health, education and other sensitive public interests. We are countering the corporations’ analysis and arguing for a more independent US government policymaking that defends global health.

For example, I testified at a recent hearing by the US Trade Representative, criticizing the US Government’s Special 301 “Watch List.” At stake is India’s key role helping facilitate global access to affordable medicines. Read more here.

A Certain Peace

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No one quite smiles in Basel. Not on the tram and not in the café.  Each of ten men sits at his separate table on a Sunday, reading the paper quietly. Our access to medicines team doesn’t quite fit. We’re … Continue reading →

South Africa’s Space Cowboys

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December 2013 — A few days into our conferences, we attend the memorial service for Nelson Mandela in Cape Town stadium. There’s a sense that the formal and relatively conservative Johannesburg ceremony seen on world television may not have been … Continue reading →

Passing through Doha

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I am in Doha, Qatar tonight on a long layover between Washington and Hanoi. Qatar is a small Middle Eastern country with wealthy citizens, many migrant workers and a large expat community. At the recommendation of friends, I pass by the Museum of Islamic Art, an exceptionally beautiful white structure by the architect I.M. Pei. It makes art from tradition, and sits across the water from Doha’s flamboyant downtown skyscrapers. Then I move along to Souq Waqif, an old market rebuilt with new money.

I think for a moment about opulence living with conservative Islam. Many, perhaps most people are dressed to cover their wrists and ankles, and in many cases their faces as well. Yet the fashion indus175try in its vulgarity is on full display in advertisements and on television sets, and conspicuous consumption seems to have the elevated position typical to wealthy urban neighborhoods. Or maybe that is for the tourists.

I stop in a Syrian restaurant for dinner and a musical performance. A man dances, whirling bright and lit cloths, with fans and a skirt that would be considered feminine in the west, yet with powerfully masculine movements. I drink tisane, a hot tea.

I am traveling alone, as I most commonly have. I am not lonely. I wonder if I have outgrown it; the years advanced such that I feel my life and friends with me even when they are distant or past.

A clay pot dish of burghul and hot tomatoes arrives at my table, and the musicians begin.