Include vaping in the Taiwan–U.S. Reciprocal Trade Agreement: Regulate to End the Black Market—Don’t Let Prohibition Create Health Risks

By Yu-Yang Wang, Tobacco Harm Reduction Expert

Taiwan’s Executive Yuan has stated that the Taiwan–U.S. Reciprocal Trade Agreement (ART) will cover multiple dimensions, including tariff reductions, non-tariff trade barriers, trade facilitation, economic security, labor protections, and environmental protection. It has also emphasized that tariff cuts will prioritize products that Taiwan does not produce domestically, that have no substitutes, that are complementary to local industries, and that can help reduce import costs. For non-tariff barriers, the government says it will adhere to “scientific evidence, international norms, and regulatory transparency.” In pharmaceutical review procedures, it seeks to streamline approvals for public health benefits, while insisting it will not retreat from core safety standards.

If these principles are to be taken seriously, the government cannot continue to avoid an area that is already out of control in Taiwan and is highly connected to U.S. standards and market realities: cross-border governance and regulatory alignment for new-generation nicotine products (including e-cigarettes and nicotine pouches and other tobacco alternatives). I argue that e-cigarette regulation should be included in ART’s negotiation agenda and its subsequent annex framework—and that this position fully aligns with the government’s own stated principles.

1) E-cigarettes are not a moral question of “whether people should vape,” but a governance question of black markets and product safety

Taiwan’s current situation is this: blanket bans and ambiguous rules have not eliminated demand; they have pushed the market underground. The most dangerous part of an underground market is not whether products exist—it is that you have no idea what is inside them: unknown sources, unknown ingredients, unknown concentrations, and no consistent testing or traceability. The result is a dual cost to public health and public order, and it has even contributed to Taiwan being flooded with illegally smuggled, over-purchased e-cigarettes from mainland China.

If ART truly aims to address “non-tariff trade barriers” and “regulatory transparency,” the priority should not be another round of slogans. It should be to put concrete issues on the table and settle them clearly: product standards, testing methods, labeling rules, traceability systems, enforcement checks, and border management. This creates a legitimate and compliant pathway—and allows enforcement to focus on the real violations: smuggling, counterfeits, youth sales, and illegal additives.

2) Standards must be negotiated on “scientific evidence and international norms,” so Taiwan no longer bears risk through regulatory vagueness

The Executive Yuan emphasizes that negotiations will follow scientific evidence and international trade rules. That means e-cigarette governance must return to technical documentation that is testable, enforceable, and accountable, including:

Standards for ingredient and emissions testing (transparent, reproducible methods)
Caps on nicotine concentration and volume, packaging warnings, and full ingredient disclosure
Child-resistant packaging, leak prevention, battery safety, and charging safety
Manufacturing quality management (GMP/quality systems) and batch-level traceability
Strict age verification and channel accountability (youth prevention is the absolute baseline)

These measures are not “liberalization” or “indulgence.” They do the opposite: they pull risk back from the black market into the rule of law and evidence-based regulation. More importantly, these technical standards and procedures are exactly where ART’s goals—“regulatory transparency” and “trade facilitation”—can be most effective: reducing uncertainty to the minimum and giving both regulators and compliant businesses clear rules to follow.

3) Use ART’s “trade facilitation” and “economic security” logic to counter smuggling and supply-chain risks

One of Taiwan’s biggest e-cigarette problems is that smuggling and underground supply chains are highly fragmented, hard to trace, expensive to police, and yet the risks spread into schools and communities. If ART is serious about trade facilitation and economic security, it should build a more effective framework for customs-information cooperation, risk-based classification, and source traceability:

Compliant products follow transparent, auditable procedures;
Illegal products are targeted through more precise risk models;
Enforcement resources are concentrated where they matter most, reducing symbolic “small catches” that miss the real networks.

This approach strengthens national security and public order—and fits the language the U.S. commonly uses for supply-chain governance and enforcement cooperation.

4) Excluding e-cigarettes from ART is the real “black-box risk”

Public distrust today is not caused by negotiation itself. It is caused by a pattern in which governments place sensitive issues into an invisible drawer. If e-cigarettes are not included in ART’s standards and annex discussions, Taiwan risks exactly that pattern: one set of promises abroad, another set of rules at home, inconsistent enforcement, and an ever-growing black market. The people who pay the price will not be officials; it will be parents, teachers, frontline inspectors, and consumers harmed by unknown products.

My proposal: Three concrete pathways to write “new nicotine product governance” into ART

Create a technical working group to fully standardize and make transparent: product standards, testing, labeling, traceability, and age verification.
Include an annex/chapter on non-tariff barriers and regulatory standards coordination so rules become predictable, auditable, and enforceable.
Build a joint border–market defense framework for stronger cooperation and information exchange against smuggling, counterfeits, and youth sales.

Let me emphasize again: including e-cigarette governance in ART is not an endorsement of any industry, nor is it “letting products run free.” It is a way to make Taiwan genuinely deliver on the principles it has publicly declared—scientific evidence, international norms, regulatory transparency, and zero retreat on core safety standards.

If ART is to become a model of “reciprocity” and “modern governance,” it should start with the issue most prone to black markets and most in need of transparent standards: bring e-cigarettes back into the sunlight, replace black boxes with institutions, and end underground risk with science.

President Trump Participates in a Listening Session on Youth Vaping and the Electronic Cigarettes. / Trump White House Archived

美國衛生部長小甘迺尼RFK Jr：「尼古丁不會致癌」他表示：尼古丁袋（Nicotine pouches）最安全，電子菸次之，傳統紙菸最危險。「尼古丁本身不會致癌，沒有證據顯示它是致癌物。」#川普拯救電子菸 #王郁揚

Include vaping in the Taiwan–U.S. Reciprocal Trade Agreement: Regulate to End the Black Market—Don’t Let Prohibition Create Health Risks

1) E-cigarettes are not a moral question of “whether people should vape,” but a governance question of black markets and product safety

2) Standards must be negotiated on “scientific evidence and international norms,” so Taiwan no longer bears risk through regulatory vagueness

3) Use ART’s “trade facilitation” and “economic security” logic to counter smuggling and supply-chain risks

4) Excluding e-cigarettes from ART is the real “black-box risk”

My proposal: Three concrete pathways to write “new nicotine product governance” into ART

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