Trump's Medicare drug price plan expected to push drugmakers to charge same as other countries

President Donald Trump will announce a plan to lower U.S. prescription drug costs by tying the amount the government pays for some medications to prices paid abroad.

President Donald Trump will announce a plan to lower U.S. prescription drug costs by tying the amount the government pays for some medications to prices paid abroad, according to two administration officials familiar with the matter — a strategy he pursued unsuccessfully during his first term.

Trump is expected to sign an executive order early next week that will instruct federal health officials to adopt a “most favored nation” pricing model for certain drugs covered by Medicare, meaning the U.S. would pay no more than the lowest prices paid by other wealthy countries, said the officials, who was granted anonymity because they weren’t authorized to describe internal deliberations.

The plan to sign the executive order was first reported by Politico.

Prescription drug prices in the United States are notoriously higher than in other countries — up to 10 times more than in other nations of similar size and wealth, according to the Rand Corporation, a public policy think tank.

Trump initially tried to implement this policy in 2020 as part of a broader effort by his administration to cut U.S. drug costs, but it was halted by a federal judge following a lawsuit from the drug industry.