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President Donald Trump announced his intention to sign an executive order aimed at reducing the prices of prescription medications and pharmaceutical products.
“Prescription Drug and Pharmaceutical prices will be lowered by nearly 30 percent to 80 percent, almost immediately,” Trump declared in a social media update.
He added, “Prices will increase globally to create parity and, for the first time in years, bring fairness to America.”
The U.S. president indicated that he would sign this significant executive order, which he described as one of the most impactful in U.S. history, at 9:00 a.m. (1300 GMT) on Monday.
Earlier that week, Trump had teased an “earth-shattering” announcement, and U.S. media had reported that it would pertain to drug pricing.
Currently, there is no centralized government regulation on drug prices for all medicines in the U.S. The pharmaceutical industry primarily determines drug pricing, with minimal government intervention, leading to exceptionally high costs for certain medications. Many drugs in the U.S. are particularly costly compared to those in other nations.
It remains uncertain how Trump’s order will be implemented, especially considering expected resistance from pharmaceutical companies.
During his first term, Trump attempted to lower drug prices by offering discounted medications, like insulin and EpiPens, to low-income individuals and proposed using lower international prices to subsidize some drugs covered by the Medicare program for seniors.
However, that proposal faced legal and political challenges and was never put into action.
In his Sunday post, Trump stated that he aims to reduce prices by “instituting a most favored nation's policy in which the U.S. would pay the same price as the nation with the lowest price globally.”
He suggested that the Democrats opposed such price reductions. Drug regulation was a key issue during the presidency of his predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden. In 2022, Biden enacted significant legislation allowing Medicare to negotiate prices for certain medications, which was viewed as a milestone achievement.
