The Trump administration’s latest move appears to continue its promise to put America first.
Americans have long paid the highest drug prices in the world, while patients in Europe and Canada receive the same medicines for a fraction of the cost. The Trump administration’s TrumpRx initiative aims to correct that imbalance.
Last May, President Trump issued an executive order directing pharmaceutical companies to offer Americans “most-favored-nation” pricing – or the lowest price charged in other developed countries.
This order came with an ultimatum to major drug manufacturers that they would face “aggressive action” from the U.S. government should they not comply. While harsh, this was a much-needed check on the pharmaceutical industry charging Americans dramatically more than foreign nations to offset lower prices negotiated abroad.
It is unconscionable that Americans, whose tax dollars fund the research and development of these life-saving medications, pay up to ten times as much for the same medicine as other countries, just because Big Pharma decided to kowtow to other countries’ demands for lower prices and recoup those costs from Americans.
Less than a year later, we are already seeing the results of the Trump administration’s efforts to make the U.S. pharmaceutical market work for Americans instead of bilking them to subsidize lower prices everywhere else.
Trump secured lower drug prices by using the leverage of the federal government and the threat of broader regulatory action to push pharmaceutical companies to negotiate. The result was a set of discounted prices made available through TrumpRx, reflecting agreements that bring certain widely used medications closer to the prices charged abroad and easing the burden on American patients who have long paid the highest prices in the global drug market.
The TrumpRx website illustrates how dramatic those price differences can be. In just one example, TrumpRx offers a nearly 90 percent drop in price per 30-pill bottle for the oral weight loss medication Wegovy – from an original price of $1,349.20, down to $149. Other medications show similarly steep reductions, including Ozempic, Bevespi for COPD, and the fertility treatment Cetrotide.
The results of TrumpRx and other fair-trade policies are already sending signals across the global pharmaceutical market. Countries that have long benefited from lower negotiated prices are facing pressure to contribute more and make deals with the U.S.
For example, Britain’s National Health Service agreed last year to pay roughly 25 percent more for certain new drugs as part of a U.S.–U.K. pricing agreement. Meanwhile, pharmaceutical executives are already complaining about fighting to get European countries to pay more for drugs, thanks to “pressure from President Donald Trump.”
Americans are finally getting a fairer shake in the global pharmaceutical market that we have led for decades.
Of course, there is some criticism coming from both the right and the left. Some conservative and free-market organizations say these policies are “socialist price controls.” However, the existing system was hardly a free market. Pharmaceutical companies effectively imposed their own price controls by charging Americans far more, while granting steep discounts abroad. This led to sick Americans paying drastically more for treatment compared to people in other nations and likely played a part in the exponential increase in medical tourism. Criticism from the left includes calling this effort a PR stunt, which ignores the effect of putting in motion efforts to bring long-term solutions, such as the agreement with the United Kingdom and other ongoing negotiations around the world. In fact, many of the Democrats in Congress who have been complaining have been in office for decades, whilst having done nothing to curb the policies and industry practices that created this situation. Unsurprisingly, much of the left’s reaction against it seems less substantive and is simply motivated to be against it because it’s something President Trump is doing.
Government intervention in distorted markets is hardly new. When monopolies once dominated American industry, strong presidents used federal power to restore competition and protect consumers. For example, Theodore Roosevelt took on the railroad monopoly. President Trump is now doing similarly against Big Pharma.
For too long, the American people were being taken advantage of under existing policies and skewed markets, paying the world’s highest drug prices while the rest of the developed world benefited.
TrumpRx brings an important tool for leveling the global playing field to the benefit of Americans.
Roderick Law is the communications director for the Functional Government Initiative. He is a graduate of the George Washington University, with a B.S. in international affairs and an M.A. in security policy studies.
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