Trump blames other countries for high US drug prices. Experts say it's not their fault

[Eugene]

Earlier DU thread: EO asks drugmakers to lower U.S. or raise foreign prices, but offers no policy proposal

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Source: Associated Press

FACT FOCUS: Trump blames other countries for high US drug prices. Experts say it’s not their fault

By MELISSA GOLDIN
Updated 5:00 PM EDT, May 14, 2025

President Donald Trump incorrectly placed the blame for high prescription drug prices in the U.S. on foreign nations, making the comments Monday when signing an executive order intended to lower their cost.

The order sets a 30-day deadline for drugmakers to electively lower prices in the U.S. or face new limits in the future over what the government will pay. If favorable deals are not reached, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will be tasked with developing a new rule that ties prices the U.S. pays for medications to lower prices paid by other countries.

Here’s a closer look at the facts.

CLAIM: “We were subsidizing others’ healthcare, the countries where they pay a small fraction of what — for the same drug that what we pay, many, many times more for, and will no longer tolerate profiteering and price gouging from Big Pharma. But again, it was really the countries that forced Big Pharma to do things that frankly, I’m not sure they really felt comfortable doing. But they’ve gotten away with it, these countries. European Union has been brutal, brutal.”

THE FACTS: This is misleading. Prices for most prescription drugs — unbranded generics are the exception — are higher in the U.S. than they are in other high-income countries. But, experts say, it is in large part the way drug prices are negotiated in the U.S. that drives up costs.

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Read more: https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-trump-drug-prices-subsidize-healthcare-a7a41cf2dbfb34fb39ecc38ea728c473