Trump announces more drug prices to be slashed in historic cost-cutting plan

President Donald Trump on Friday announced British pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca will join Pfizer in lowering drug prices as part of the “Most Favored Nations” (MFN) plan to drastically reduce the cost of prescriptions for Americans.

“Most Favored Nations is you’re going to pay whatever the lowest price anywhere in the world is. That’s what you’re going to be paying,” Trump told The Lion and other media gathered in the Oval Office. “AstraZeneca is committing to offer all of their prescription medications to Medicaid at Most Favored Nations prices, in other words, the lowest price anywhere in the world. That’s what we get, a move that will save American taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars each year.”

Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy explained how previously inflated drug prices burden Americans with an unfair share of biopharmaceutical research and development.

“We only have 4.2% of the world’s population, and we were paying for 80 or 90% of the innovation here, and the rest of the world was right. It was a free rider,” Kennedy said. “And Pascal understood that that’s not fair, and it’s not a good, sustainable, long term business model. And he came to the table.”

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz called the bold effort to lower prices a “generational opportunity.”

“By the time this term is done, 95% of all drugs sold in America, branded drugs and generic will be available at a most favored nation drug pricing,” he predicted.

AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot also spoke, joking that the president’s tough negotiating approach had kept him and his team up at night.

“It’s been worth it because today I’m really excited to announce AstraZeneca’s commitment to your vision for a healthy America,” he said. “Great leadership is about having an ambitious vision that can energize people, and you appoint a very talented, talented team that can deliver on this your vision is exactly that. It is about lowering the price of medicines for American patients while ensuring that America remains a global powerhouse of innovation in biopharmaceuticals. And that’s not easy to do.”

The deal with Pfizer marked a “bold step” marking the end of “the era of global price gouging at the expense of American families,” Trump said late last month. For decades, Americans have paid the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs – often 10 to 15 times higher than other countries “for the exact same product,” Trump also said. 

The administration says Americans will be able to purchase their prescriptions directly from TrumpRX.gov soon.

Trump also answered questions from reporters on a variety of topics including China, the Israel-Hamas peace deal, the government shutdown.

He confirmed that he has not yet canceled an upcoming meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, following a Truth Social post earlier Friday in which Trump said he had planned to meet with Xi in two weeks but now “there seems to be no reason to do so.” The threat came after China said it would impose export limits on rare earth minerals critical to American manufacturing.

Asked if he had formally canceled the meeting, Trump said he had not canceled it and said he assumes they “might have it.” He called China’s export limits “shocking” and something that was “out of the blue.”

He also called the peace deal between Israel and Hamas a “great deal for everybody,” including for Israel, Arabs, Muslims, and “the world.”

“As you know, on Monday, the hostages come back, they’re getting them now,” he said, “from some pretty rough places.”

Asked his thoughts about not winning the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, he said the winner, María Corina Machado, called him and said “‘I’m accepting this in honor of you, because you really deserve it.’ A very nice thing to do.”