Trump pledges to make US drug prices world’s lowest

US President Donald Trump yesterday said his administration is working on an executive order to reduce US drug prices to match the lowest in the world. “We’re working on a favored nations law where we pay whatever the lowest nation’s price is,” Trump told reporters from the White House South Lawn.

“As you know, for years and years other nations paid less for drugs than we do, sometimes by 60 percent, 70pc,” he said. The president accused pharmaceutical companies of having “taken advantage of the system for a long time,” with US drug prices often exceeding those in neighboring Canada and Mexico as well as Europe.

“Why should other nations like Canada -- why should other nations pay much less than us?” Trump said, declaring that he would handle the matter “in the form of an executive order.”