Trump administration threatened tiny nation over breastfeeding

Ecuador’s support for an international resolution backing breastfeeding has triggered US threats of punitive trade measures and the axing of military aid.

The Trump administration has forced the South American country to back down over its support for breastfeeding at the United Nations-affiliated World Health Assembly in May, The New York Times reports.

The move reflected the US government’s championing of the $US70 billion ($94 billion) baby formula industry – mainly based in the US and Europe.

American officials only agreed to the resolution in Geneva when Russia threw its support behind the resolution.

Initial US hostility was triggered by a draft passage calling on governments to “protect, promote and support breast feeding”.

Other wording that called for policy makers to restrict the promotion of food products that could potentially harm children also irked American delegates.

The US directed its ire at Ecuador when the South American nation agreed to introduce the resolution.

Threats to end vital US military aid and punishing trade measures forced the Ecuador delegates to drop out. But Russia rescued the resolution by stepping in and introducing it.

“We feel that it is wrong when a big country tries to push around some very small countries, especially on an issue that is really important for the rest of the world,” a Russian delegate told The New York Times.

The US eventually relented and the resolution passed largely in its original form.

With more mothers in developed nations turning to breastfeeding, the Third World is regarded as a potential growth market for infant formula companies.

US President Donald Trump has previously expressed repugnance at the act of breastfeeding.

In a 2011 deposition, he became enraged when lawyer Elizabeth Beck asked for a break to pump breast milk for her infant daughter. Beck told CNN in 2015 that Trump called her “disgusting”.