Trump Promises To Save The Electronic Cigarette Industry Again!

On September 20, 2024, former U.S. President Donald Trump wrote on the social media platform Truth Social: "I saved flavored e-cigarettes in 2019, which greatly helped people quit smoking. I raised the age for using e-cigarettes to 21, preventing kids from accessing them. However, Harris and Biden want to ban everything, causing small businesses across America to close down. I will save e-cigarettes again!"

 

Truth Social is a social media platform created by Trump. After being banned by mainstream social media like Facebook and Twitter in 2021, he established Truth Social, which currently has 5 million monthly active users. On March 26 of this year, the platform's parent company, Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), went public on the NASDAQ in the U.S.

 

It is understood that during his first term, Trump promised to crack down on the sale of flavored e-cigarette products but later changed his stance, stating that e-cigarettes could help people quit smoking. According to foreign media reports, Trump's initial proposal in 2019 was to ban the sale of all sweet and fruit-flavored e-cigarette cartridges within 30 days but to allow gas stations and convenience stores to continue selling menthol-flavored cartridges and e-cigarettes. The proposal also allowed vape shops to sell various e-liquids for use in open-system devices, as users of open systems are typically adults.

 

However, two days later, Trump quickly withdrew the ban, stating that e-cigarettes could help people quit smoking and should not be banned, retaining flavored e-cigarettes. He emphasized the need to ensure that products are safe and reliable and to drive counterfeit products out of the U.S. market, keeping kids away from e-cigarettes. Since then, Trump has maintained a positive stance on e-cigarettes.

Currently, for e-cigarette products to be legally sold permanently in the U.S. market, they must go through a PMTA application, which is the mechanism through which the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates e-cigarettes. However, according to data released by the agency, only 34 e-cigarette products and devices have passed the PMTA application, most of which are tobacco-flavored products, along with a few menthol-flavored ones.

 

Moreover, all FDA-authorized e-cigarette products come from international tobacco companies under the VUSE, NJOY, and Logic e-cigarette brands. For other e-cigarette brands, including those from China, passing the PMTA is extremely difficult. For consumers in the U.S. market, the legal tobacco and menthol-flavored e-cigarettes cannot meet their needs, leading to poor sales of legal e-cigarettes on one hand and rampant black market products on the other, further increasing the risk of minors using e-cigarettes.

 

 

Given Trump's long-standing attitude towards e-cigarettes, if he defeats Harris and is re-elected as President of the United States, small and medium-sized e-cigarette companies hoping to enter the U.S. market may see new hope. Of course, some believe that Trump's support for e-cigarettes is just to win the industry's votes, and whether he can deliver on his promise to relax U.S. e-cigarette laws remains to be seen.