President Trump on Thursday sent letters to 17 of the world’s biggest drugmakers demanding that they reduce some of their U.S. prices to the much lower levels they charge other wealthy countries by late September.
Despite the strong language in the letters, which the administration posted on social media, Mr. Trump’s demands amount to a request that drug companies act voluntarily: His administration has not put forward a clear legal authority to compel them to lower their prices.
Still, he wrote, “If you refuse to step up, we will deploy every tool in our arsenal to protect American families from continued abusive drug pricing practices.”
Since Mr. Trump issued an executive order in May asking drugmakers to lower their prices, many companies have submitted proposals to the administration to try to reach a truce. In the letters, the president called most of those proposals inadequate, saying they were “shifting blame and requesting policy changes that would result in billions of dollars in handouts to industry.”
Mr. Trump’s new 15 percent tariffs on imported medicines from Europe, which could go into effect as soon as sometime in August, could further complicate his efforts to lower drug prices. The tariffs would add billions in import charges for the largest drug companies, which make many of their biggest blockbusters in Europe. The levies, in turn, may lead companies to raise drug prices for American patients, government programs and employers.
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