(Mark Schiefelbein/AP photos)
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Monday ordering prescription drug and pharmaceutical prices to be cut “almost immediately, by 30% to 80%.”
The order directed Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to institute a new program for U.S. consumers to buy prescription drugs directly from manufacturers at “the most-favored-nation price.” Trump tried a similar “most-favored nation” cost-cutting program in his first term for Medicare drugs, but federal courts stopped it as drugmakers sued, alleging government overreach and price controls.
While campaigning against Vice President Kamala Harris in August, Trump appeared to have abandoned the idea of government price setting altogether, claiming it “doesn’t work.”
In mid-August, Trump held a press conference on inflation and attacked the Biden-Harris administration over the price of everyday goods, which he had on stage with him.
“Flour is up 38% and eggs are up 46%, and many items are up at much higher rates than that,” Trump fumed at the time, adding:
Now, Kamala is reportedly proposing communist price controls. She wants price controls. And if they worked, I’d go along with it too. But they don’t work. They actually have the exact opposite impact and effect.
But it leads to food shortages, rationing, hunger, dramatically more inflation.
The Republican Party has long governed on the ideals surrounding free trade and argued for the market to set prices, something Trump has moved away from with his sweeping global tariffs. Trump has argued that his tariffs are a tool to force other countries to remove their tariffs on the U.S. in order to create a global economy without trade restrictions.
Trump announced his price-setting on prescription drugs on Sunday, writing, “Prescription Drug and Pharmaceutical prices will be REDUCED, almost immediately, by 30% to 80%. They will rise throughout the World in order to equalize and, for the first time in many years, bring FAIRNESS TO AMERICA! 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. 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. Thank you for your attention to this matter. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
The post Trump Embrace of Price Controls is U-Turn From Campaign — When He Said They ‘Don’t Work’ And Make Problems Worse first appeared on Mediaite.
