The President is seeking to end the country’s reliance on drugs and essential medical supplies from China. The Coronavirus pandemic has reignited the debate about the nations reliance on China for the supply of life saving drugs.
Trump will tighten “Buy American” laws to encourage the purchasing of American-made pharmaceuticals and medical equipment.
“China has managed to dominate all aspects of the supply chain using the same unfair trade practices that it has used to dominate other sectors — cheap sweatshop labor, lax environmental regulations and massive government subsidies,” said the White House trade adviser Peter Navarro.
“As President Trump has said, what we need to do is bring those jobs home so that we can protect the public health and the economic and national security of the country.”
Despite America being a world leader in drug discoveries, manufacturing of drugs has moved off shore. With China producing much of the world’s penicillin, antibiotics, face masks, and other key medical devices.
America’s last penicillin factory closed in 2004. But Chinese pharmaceutical companies have supplied more than 90 percent of U.S. antibiotics, vitamin C, ibuprofen and hydrocortisone, as well as 70 percent of acetaminophen and 40 to 45 percent of heparin in recent years, according to Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Read More: NYTimes
