Donald Trump’s pledge to save vaping is under scrutiny after federal authorities seized hundreds of thousands of products in what industry leaders say could devastate U.S. manufacturers.
Two weeks ago, Attorney General Pam Bondi, working with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), announced the seizure of 600,000 vaping products from China. She said the items were “unregulated in the amount of nicotine present, as well as the presence of heavy metals and untested chemicals.”
But according to the Vapor Technology Association (VTA), the operation also swept up U.S.-made liquids.
‘90% of seized products were American-made’
Speaking on Just the News No Noise with John Solomon, VTA executive director Tony Abboud said: “We heard 90% of the products that they took from that facility that day were actually American-made e-liquids. This is the part that we really cannot figure out what is exactly going on with the FDA.”
Abboud contrasted the seizures with Trump’s campaign rhetoric. “When President Trump, in just last September, said that ‘I saved flavoured vaping in 2019 and it greatly helped adults quit smoking, and I also raised the age to 21 to protect the kids, and now the youth vaping rate is the lowest level ever’.
“And then he said Joe and Kamala are trying to shut down small businesses all over the country because they want to ban everything. That’s why he said ‘I’m going to save vaping again’. But, this is completely incongruent, out of step with what happened last week because it was the American e-liquid companies that suffered the worst brunt.”
Industry impact
Abboud emphasised the scale of the domestic industry. “We generate over 90,000 jobs in this economy by manufacturing and/or selling vaping products.
“And yeah, virtually every device made by every company, including some of the products or all the products that have been authorised by the FDA are made in China. But we can grow this industry here. There is no question about it. We can grow manufacturing here. But the big impediment to that is this FDA regulation, which is a Biden regulation.”
He described the crackdown as “this FDA’s enforcement of Biden’s ban” and added: “I don’t believe that the Trump administration or President Trump himself believes in banning products, particularly products which he knows helps adults quit smoking cigarettes.”
Regulatory bottleneck
To date, the FDA has authorised only a handful of vaping products out of millions of applications submitted through its Premarket Tobacco Product Application (PMTA) process. Abboud said: “They’ve only authorised, basically a handful, you can count them on on both hands, of vapes that they claim are legal. As a result of that, you have companies that are struggling – American companies.”
He called for “a clear scientific set of guidelines as to how these products should be made, so we know that the products are manufactured in a safe way.”
Harm reduction at stake
Abboud also questioned the focus of enforcement. “There are cigarettes sold on every corner in the United States. Nobody’s doing anything about cigarette smoking, those products have far greater levels of heavy metals, formaldehyde, carcinogens. You can go down the list.
“And yet nobody is talking about the actual dangers that exist in cigarettes, but just some potential dangers of what might be found in vapes. The reality is [that] vapes have been on the market for over 10 years. We have never had a public health outbreak in relation to them.”
Public health experts, including Public Health England and the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, have previously concluded that vaping is significantly less harmful than smoking and can help adult smokers transition away from cigarettes – which still kill more than 1,300 Americans every day.
Abboud concluded: “At the end of the day, we have a real big problem for American consumers. They are using these products, and they are using them to stay off of cigarettes or to get off of cigarettes.”
