President Donald Trump said Sunday he will sign an executive order that will reduce the cost of pharmaceuticals “almost immediately by 30% to 80%.”
Trump announced the move in a post on Truth Social. The order aims to bring “FAIRNESS TO AMERICA” by lowering drug costs in the United States while raising them throughout the rest of the world.
“Therefore, I am pleased to announce that Tomorrow morning, in the White House, at 9:00 A.M., I will be signing one of the most consequential Executive Orders in our Country’s history,” Trump said.
“I will be instituting a MOST FAVORED NATION’S POLICY whereby the United States will pay the same price as the Nation that pays the lowest price anywhere in the World,” he said. “Our Country will finally be treated fairly, and our citizens Healthcare Costs will be reduced by numbers never even thought of before. Additionally, on top of everything else, the United States will save TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS.”
The plan to link the cost of drugs in the United States to the cost of drugs in foreign countries comes after the president announced last month that he plans to enact “major” tariffs on pharmaceuticals.
“We’re going to tariff our pharmaceuticals,” Trump told the National Republican Congressional Committee. “And once we do that, they’re going to come rushing back into our country because we’re the big market.”
In the United States, drugs are significantly more costly than elsewhere in the world. On average, prices in the United States are 2.78 times higher than those seen in 33 other nations, according to a 2024 Rand Corporation report.
For brand name drugs, the price difference is even starker: “The gap between prices in the United States and other countries is even larger for brand-named drugs, with U.S. prices averaging 4.22 times those in comparison nations.”
Some of the contributing factors to high drug costs in the United States are the lack of transparency in drug prices and the prevalence in foreign countries of having centralized government negotiators haggling over the cost of pharmaceuticals.
