President Donald Trump recently released an ambitious, 44-page plan to drive down prescription drug prices. The blueprint relies, in part, on negotiating and enforcing trade deals to prevent other countries from freeloading off of American researchers.
That’s a smart strategy. Right now, most of our trading partners impose government price controls on drugs. Ensuring that these nations pay fair market value for medicines would spur additional research spending by U.S. drugmakers. Ultimately, this process would lead to more new drugs, forcing manufacturers to compete for market share by continually lowering their prices.
