President Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs on imported generic drugs could raise some prices for patients, a key GOP lawmaker on health issues said this week. But he said that’s a potentially worthwhile trade-off to protect the nation’s drug supply.
“The national security might be something worth paying for,” Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, said July 22 in an exclusive interview with KFF Health News.
The U.S., which has grappled with drug shortages in recent years, relies primarily on China to produce the active ingredients in many antibiotics, according to a study published last fall in JAMA Health Forum. Domestic facilities have closed or shifted to producing other drugs.
“Do we want China to have that sort of leverage for these drugs to be produced principally, maybe 99%, over there, and we don’t have access to them if tension rises between the two countries?” said Cassidy, who is a physician.
On July 21, Trump said in a social media post that he would give generic drug companies two years to move production back to the U.S., after which he would impose 100% tariffs on imported products, rising to 200% the following year. Generic drugs make up an estimated 90% of all prescriptions filled in the U.S.
Cassidy, who has served in Congress since 2009, lost his bid for reelection in May after Trump endorsed a Republican primary challenger, Rep. Julia Letlow.
Last month, more than 16 months after his vote to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as head of the Department of Health and Human Services, Cassidy said on CBS News’ Face the Nation that the secretary broke promises he made to the senator, including that he would not change the federal recommendations for childhood vaccines.
Asked whether he would summon Kennedy again to discuss those promises, Cassidy said he had asked for him to