Cuba says U.K. is anti-capitalist

Cuba has accused the U.K. of being anti-capitalist and threatening free trade with its plans to introduce standardized packaging for cigarettes and cigars, according to a story on The Telegraph Online.

In a letter to the World Trade Organization, the country said it recognized the U.K.’s right to apply measures aimed at protecting the health of its people, while recognizing also that tobacco was a harmful but lawful product in international trade.

It said that standardized packaging would lead to an increase in counterfeit cigarettes by preventing manufacturers displaying their products’ distinctive trademarks.

And it said it believed that such a move would increase health risks to those people who smoked black-market cigarettes containing unknown substances, though it wasn’t clear how it could be known that health risks would be increased if the substances were unknown.

Cuba also said the U.K. move would impose unnecessary restrictions on international trade and undermined the provisions of international trademark legislation.

The letter, to the WTO’s Committee to Technical Barriers on Trade, concluded by expressing concern over the U.K. parliament’s decision to move ahead with the process of implementation of standardized packaging of tobacco products without waiting for a settlement of the complaint against Australia, which is being processed by the WTO Dispute Settlement Body.