I’m pretty sure that this is the big announcement that the President spoke of last week.
Notes and partial transcription:
- Thank you everybody. It’s a big day. Should be fun. I don’t know, you’ll maybe find reasons why it’s not, but I can’t imagine, because we have a lot of great things happening. It’s been a very strong week and a very strong weekend.
- He mentions the ceasefire between India and Pakistan.
- The Houthis let it be known that they’re not going to be firing at American ships anymore.
- We achieved a Total Reset with China after productive talks in Geneva. Both sides now agreed to reduce the tariffs imposed after April second to 10% for 90 days as negotiators continue on the larger structural issues. The talks in Geneva were very friendly. The relationship is very good.
- The President also mentions things that aren’t included in the trade agreement with China, and he goes on to speak of same” and how it will affect and benefit our farmers.
- Tim Cook is going to be building a lot of plants in the United States for Apple.
- Trump goes on about how “Opening up China to American business” would be good for both countries, but that it’s still being negotiated.
- I’m very happy to announce that Edan Alexander, an American citizen who until recently most thought was no longer living, is going to be released in about two hours, actually.
- We’ll be seeing three primary countries: Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar on Thursday’s meeting with Russia and Ukraine. It’s very important. I was very insistent that that meeting take place. Good things can come out of that meeting. Stop the bloodshed. It’s a blood bath. More than 5,000 soldiers from Russia and Ukraine…not American soldiers, but they’re people. They’re human souls, and they’re being killed at levels that we haven’t seen since the Second World War.
- So now I’m about to depart on an historic visit to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and United Arab Emirates.
- Before I do, I’ll sign one of the most consequential executive orders in our country’s history.
- Why doesn’t somebody fight the drug price situation, meaning equalization. The drug lobby has a lot of power, but starting today, the United States will no longer subsidize the health care of foreign countries, which is what we were doing. We’re subsidizing others healthcare, countries where they paid a small fraction of what, for the same drug, that what we pay…many many times more for, and will no longer tolerate profiteering and price gouging from big pharma.
- But again, it was really the countries that forced big pharma to do things that frankly, I’m not sure they really felt comfortable doing, but they’ve gotten away with it. European Union has been brutal, and the drug companies actually told me stories: it was just brutal how they were forced.
- Trump called the speaker of the house and our leader in the Senate, John Thune. He said,”When you score, you’re going to have to score two things You’re going to have to number one score that hundreds of billions of dollars of tariff money is coming in, but even bigger than that, you’re going to have to score that your cost for Medicaid and Medicare and just basically pharmaceuticals and drugs is going down at a level that nobody has ever seen before.
- It’ll pay for the Golden Dome. I see the Golden Dome is there. See, that’ll easily pay for the Golden Dome, and we have a lot of money left over. We need the Golden Dome, by the way, in this world. Although this world’s a lot safer today than it was a week ago, and a lot safer than it was six months ago.
- So today, Americans spend 70% more for prescription drugs than we spent in the year 2000. Our country has the highest drug prices anywhere in the world by sometimes a factor of five six seven eight times. There are even cases of 10 times higher.
- Even though the United States is home to only 4% of the world’s population, pharmaceutical companies make more than two thirds of their profits in America.
- I think they did one of the greatest jobs in history for their company convincing people for many years that this was a fair system. Nobody really understood why, but I figured it out. For years, pharmaceutical and drug companies have said that research and development costs were what they are, and for no reason whatsoever, they had to be borne by America alone. Not anymore.
- American patients were effectively subsidizing socialist health care systems in Germany, in all parts of the European Union. They were the toughest of all. They were nasty, and I see that with trade too. European Union is, in many ways, nastier than China.
- We’ve just started with them, They’ll come down a lot, you watch. We have all the cards. They treated us very unfairly. They sell us 13 million cars. We sell them none. They sell us their agricultural products. We sell them virtually none. They don’t take our products That gives us all the cards.
- So they’re going to have to pay more for healthcare, and we’re going to have to pay less. That’s all it is.
- It’s just a redistribution of wealth. So basically, what we’re doing is equalizing. Now there may be some countries in dire need, and I would be willing to sacrifice and help them, but it’s called Most Favored Nation. We are going to pay the lowest price there is in the world. We will get whoever is paying the lowest price, that’s the price that we’re going to get.
- Democrats have fought like hell for the drug companies, and they knew they were doing the wrong thing.
- First, I’m directing the US trade representatives and Department of Commerce to begin investigations into foreign nations that extort drug companies by blocking their products unless they accept bottom line and very low dollar amounts for their product, unfairly shifting the cost burden onto American patients.
- We’re going to tell those countries like those represented by the European Union that the game is up, sorry. And if they want to get cute, then they don’t have to sell cars into the United States anymore. It’s a very big subject.
- Prices will be reduced almost immediately by 50 to 80 to 90%. Big pharma will either abide by this principle voluntarily, or we will use the power of the federal government to ensure that we are paying the same price as other countries to accelerate these price restrictions and reductions.
- My administration will also cut out the middlemen We’re going to totally cut out the famous middlemen. Nobody knows who they are. They’ve I’ve been hearing the term for 25 years. I don’t know who they are, but they’re rich, that I can tell you. We’re going to cut out the middlemen and facilitate the direct sale of drugs at the Most Favored Nation price directly to the American citizen.
- It’s so important. You got to do that. They’re worse than the drug companies They don’t even make a product, and they make a fortune. It’s very smart business people, that I can tell you.
- We never used our powers that way. We never knew how. We never had people that knew how to do that. We’ll also open up America’s market to safe and legal imports of affordable drugs from other countries, putting dramatic downward pressure on prices.
- If necessary, we’ll investigate the drug companies, and we’ll (in particular) investigate the countries that are doing this, and we will add it on to the price that we charge them for doing business in America. In other words, we’ll add it on to tariffs if they don’t do what is right: Everybody should equalize. Everybody should say pay the same price.
- Special interests may not like this very much, but the American people will. I’m doing this for the American people against the most powerful lobby in the world probably: the drug lobby and pharmaceutical lobby. It’s one of the most important orders I think that’s ever been signed, certainly with regard to health care or health in the history of our country.
- It’s an honor to be a part of it.
Then, the President introduces Bobby Kennedy.
I haven’t gotten around to making notes of his part yet.