Trump Asks 17 Pharma Companies to Cut Drug Prices

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Above: Medicines at a shop in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, on July 31, 2025. Image copyright: Firdous Nazir/NurPhoto/Getty Images

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The Spin

Pro-Trump narrative

Trump's pharmaceutical gambit exploits America's leverage as the world's largest drug market while threatening free-market solutions — import liberalization and patent reform — that Big Pharma has blocked through lobbying. By bypassing congressional gridlock and directly confronting an industry that's bilked consumers for decades, he's weaponizing executive power for the people.

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Anti-Trump narrative

Trump's voluntary price reduction gambit is economic theater masquerading as policy. Rather than confronting America's broken pharmaceutical pricing system, he's pursuing a dangerous zero-sum strategy that would force other nations to subsidize the U.S.' dysfunction while delivering negligible savings to Americans — a cynical deflection that perpetuates the very problems he claims to solve.

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