WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Monday affixed his signature to a sweeping executive order establishing a 30-day deadline, compelling pharmaceutical purveyors within the United States to either unilaterally depress the exorbitant prices of prescription medications or confront future governmental strictures limiting their remuneration.

This executive order mandates that the Department of Health, under the aegis of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., undertake negotiations concerning novel pharmaceutical pricing modalities within the ensuing month. Should an accord remain elusive, Kennedy is charged with the elaboration of a nascent regulatory framework wherein the prices proffered by the United States for pharmaceuticals are tethered to a level beneath that disbursed by other sovereign nations.

During a Monday morning press conference, Trump asserted, "We are enacting a state of parity," adding, "Everyone will remit the same amount. It will be congruent with the sum disbursed by Europe."

The ultimate ramifications for millions of Americans with private health insurance, stemming from this executive order issued by the Republican President, remain inchoate; the federal government's most significant leverage in pharmaceutical pricing is predominantly manifested within the rubrics of Medicare and Medicaid coverage.

The advent of Mr. Trump's promised yet uncertain reductions in pharmaceutical prices occurred mere hours subsequent to the unveiling of the Republican-led House's novel initiative, which aimed to effectuate an $880 billion diminution in Medicaid expenditures.

The preeminent pharmaceutical lobbying group in the United States, representing the nation's largest drug manufacturers, vehemently opposed President Trump's executive order, denouncing it as a "raw deal for American patients," aligning with the industry's protracted assertion that any existential threat to profitability could precipitate deleterious consequences for novel therapeutic research and development.

In a statement, Stephen J. Ubl, President and CEO of PhRMA (Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America), asserted that "Importing foreign socialist price controls is a detrimental bargain for American patients and workers, as it would diminish therapeutic and curative possibilities and imperil the tens of billions of dollars our member companies are poised to invest in the United States."

The so-called "most-favored-nation" approach to Medicare drug pricing advocated by Mr. Trump has been a subject of considerable contention since he initially attempted its implementation during his early tenure, culminating in a similar executive order signed in the final weeks of his presidency mandating the United States only pay the lower prices paid by other nations for certain pharmaceuticals, including injectable drugs administered in doctors' offices and cancer treatments delivered via intravenous drip.

Nevertheless, the circumscribed ambit of that executive order encountered formidable impediments to its implementation owing to a judicial injunction that forestalled the rule's promulgation under the aegis of the Joe Biden administration; the pharmaceutical industry had contended that Trump's 2020 endeavour would confer upon foreign governments "leverage" to adjudicate the valuation of pharmaceuticals within the United States.

During a sweeping address at the White House on Monday, Mr. Trump, while repeatedly defending pharmaceutical companies, instead laid culpability for the exorbitant prices Americans pay for pharmaceuticals squarely at the feet of other nations, simultaneously intimating the possibility of federal investigations and measures aimed at introducing imported drugs from abroad into the U.S. market.

トランプ氏は、製薬企業の収益の過半が米国に依存している現状を、看過し得ない由々しき事態であると断じた。

During the weekend, Trump underscored the potentially multitrillion-dollar savings his agenda could engender through a series of posts designed to amplify his proclamations.

However, on Monday, the White House refrained from furnishing concrete figures regarding the projected fiscal retrenchment the administration anticipates realizing.

Mr. Oz (Administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services) stated that the head of the Department of Health would convene with pharmaceutical executives over the ensuing month to proffer a nascent drug pricing paradigm predicated upon prices rendered in foreign jurisdictions.

Rachel Sachs, a legal scholar specializing in healthcare policy at the University of Washington, posits that the presidential decree is unlikely to yield an immediate or substantial amelioration in the escalating burden of pharmaceutical expenditures for American citizens.

"The proposal, as explicated by Sachs, stipulates a discretionary price reduction on the part of manufacturers to an unspecified level, and should the desired threshold not be attained, the Ministry of Health would then deliberate upon and potentially implement alternative measures, an undertaking conceivably protracted over several years."

The Ministry of Health possesses the most significant authority to alter the prices of pharmaceuticals covered by Medicare and Medicaid; however, this prerogative is not without its constraints. In 2022, Congress ratified groundbreaking legislation empowering Medicare to negotiate the prices of a select subset of prescription drugs commencing in 2026. Prior to this watershed moment, Medicare invariably acquiesced to the prices dictated by pharmaceutical corporations, who subsequently launched unsuccessful legal challenges to impede the implementation of this transformative statute.

Conversely, the exaction levied for pharmaceuticals upon the myriad of Americans enrolled in private insurance constitutes an issue demonstrably more refractory to manipulation by the Department of Health and Human Services.

The United States, consistently burdened by exorbitant pharmaceutical costs compared to other major and affluent nations, has long witnessed this issue serve as a perennial source of bipartisan exasperation, yet a durable resolution has consistently remained elusive, failing to navigate the legislative process to enactment.

During his initial tenure, Mr. Trump acrimoniously denounced pharmaceutical companies, accusing them of abetting homicide, and lamented the alleged exploitation of Americans by nations where governments dictated drug pricing, characterising these practices as predatory.

Prior to the announcement, Trump had once again unleashed scathing criticism upon the industry via social media, penning that pharmaceutical and drug companies had for years invoked research and development costs, and that these expenses had been unjustly borne solely by American "victims," without legitimate cause.

Furthermore, he alluded to the formidable lobbying efforts of pharmaceutical conglomerates, asserting, "Electoral contributions can undoubtedly exert significant influence, but they hold no sway over either myself or the Republican Party."

He averred with conviction, "We shall comport ourselves with rectitude."

On Monday morning, shares in several pharmaceutical companies saw an uptick, with Merck, which garnered $64.2 billion in revenue last year from its cancer drug Keytruda, rising 3.9%; pharmaceutical titan Pfizer, which recorded $63.6 billion in sales in 2024, advancing 2.5%; and Gilead Sciences posting a gain of 5.8%.