Donald Trump is used to shaking things up. And this one is a whopper.
Now Trump shocked drug companies with a 60 day demand they never saw coming.
Trump Takes Bold Action to Slash Drug Prices
President Donald Trump decisively confronted soaring prescription drug costs on August 1, 2025, by sending letters to 17 major pharmaceutical company CEOs, demanding they lower prices within 60 days.
Posting the letters on social media, Trump declared, “This unacceptable burden on hardworking American families ends with my Administration.”
The letters highlight that name-brand drug prices in the U.S. are “up to three times higher on average than anywhere else for identical medicines,” showcasing Trump’s commitment to easing financial pressures on Americans.
His proactive leadership aims to deliver immediate relief, reinforcing his promise to prioritize American families over Big Pharma profits.
Executive Order Drives Most-Favored-Nation Pricing
The letters, sent to companies like AbbVie, Eli Lilly, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, and others, align with Trump’s May 2025 executive order, “Delivering Most-Favored-Nation Prescription Drug Pricing to American Patients.”
The order mandates that drug companies charge U.S. consumers the same lower prices offered in foreign countries, addressing the practice where manufacturers “deeply discount their products to access foreign markets, and subsidize that decrease through enormously high prices in the United States,” as reported by The Daily Wire.
The letters direct companies to apply most-favored-nation (MFN) pricing for Medicaid patients, guarantee MFN prices for new drugs, negotiate with “freeloading” nations to redirect revenues to Americans, and enable direct purchasing at MFN prices.
Trump’s firm stance, giving companies until September 29 to comply, underscores his resolve to end what he calls “abusive drug pricing practices,” ensuring fairness for U.S. patients.
Trump’s Vision for Affordable Healthcare
Trump’s initiative builds on broader efforts to reform healthcare costs, backed by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who in May suggested that a 20% price hike in other nations could significantly lower U.S. drug costs by sharing research and development burdens.
A second executive order signed in May reduced regulatory hurdles for domestic production of critical medicines, boosting U.S. self-reliance.
In the letters, Trump warned, “[If] you refuse to step up, we will deploy every tool in our arsenal to protect American families from continued abusive drug pricing practices,” signaling his readiness to use federal authority to deliver results.
By targeting companies like Amgen, AstraZeneca, and Merck, Trump’s aggressive push for MFN pricing positions him as a champion of American consumers, leveraging his administration’s economic successes—3% GDP growth last quarter and 3.2% inflation in June 2025—to demand accountability from pharmaceutical giants and secure affordable drugs for the nation.
