President Trump signs executive order to bring drug manufacturing back to US soil

According to White House Director of Trade & Manufacturing Policy Peter Navarro the signing of the executive order comes at a crucial time “as we fight this battle against the invisible enemy from China”.

The new order will seek to: 
• Establish ‘Buy American’ rules for Federal Government agencies

• Strip away regulatory barriers to domestic pharmaceutical manufacturing

• Help spark the manufacturing technologies needed to keep drug prices low and move more medicine production onshore

President Trump signed the order Thursday while visiting a Whirlpool manufacturing plant in Clyde, Ohio. This plant represents another important piece of President Trump’s pro-America, pro-worker trade strategy toward China and other countries.

In January 2018, the United States challenged what it said to be years of unfair trade practices by imposing tariffs that stopped washing machine manufacturers, including Whirlpool, from getting undercut by Chinese imports. After President Trump took action, Whirlpool’s Clyde plant alone was able to create 200 new jobs for U.S. workers, the White House said.

“Washington stood idly by as other countries engaged in unfair trade practices, such as massive subsidies, currency manipulation, and . . . the wholesale dumping of foreign-made products sold below cost for the sole purpose of driving you out of business” so they could later jack up prices, President Trump told workers today.
 
Today’s executive order directs the Department of Health and Human Services to use the Defense Production Act to buy essential medicines and other equipment from within the United States.
Drug prices will be kept low for customers, and American companies will be able to compete more fairly on the world stage as a result, the White House said in a release.

In addition, the White House said, the FDA and the Environmental Protection Agency will now give priority to domestic manufacturers during the regulatory review of pharmaceutical ingredients and essential medicines. Federal agencies will also help prevent the trafficking of counterfeit medicines from third-party sellers online.

“It’s a great day for America,” Navarro said. “The President has promised that he would bring home the supply chains in production for our essential medicines, and today we're taking a very big step towards fulfillment of that promise.”

President Trump has long made returning blue-collar jobs to America a top priority. Now, the coronavirus pandemic has made even clearer the risks of becoming reliant on foreign nations for essential supplies.
Fortunately, more than any other president in history, President Trump is a fearless advocate for both buying and hiring American, said the White House.

As a result, the White House said the president’s list of trade accomplishments keeps growing, pointing to renegotiated deals such as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement and trade agreements with South Korea, Japan and other nations, as deals that will “protect American jobs and customers”.

“Globalization has made the financial elites who donate to politicians very wealthy, but it’s left millions and millions of our workers with nothing but poverty and heartache — and our towns and cities with empty factories and plants,” President Trump said.

“We’ve made extraordinary progress in reversing the dangerous tide of globalism.”