Trump sends letters to pharmaceutical companies requiring a drop in prescription prices

President Donald Trump increases the heat of pharmaceutical companies, urging them in letters sent Thursday to reduce the prices of medicines in accordance with a decree he signed in May.

But Trump has the limited power to really force pharmaceutical companies to adjust prices, according to experts, and his effort is equivalent to pricing.

Consequently, the use of public pressure through these letters can be a tool it employs to bring companies to comply, according to Benedic Ippolito, a main scholarship holder in economic policy studies at the reflection group on the conservative of the American Enterprise Institute.

“One of the big questions has been to know how realistically the administration can do something that is at least nominally voluntary,” Ippolito told Fox News Digital on Monday.

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President Donald Trump holds decrees on biomedical research security in the Oval Office of the White House, May 5, 2025. (Alex Brandon / The Associated Press)

Medication prices have increased considerably in recent years.

Prescription drug prices increased by more than 15% compared to January 2022 and January 2023, reaching an average of $ 590 per drug product, according to the Ministry of Health and Social Services. Of the 4,200 prescription drugs included on this list, 46% of price increases exceeded the inflation rate.

Trump’s initial decree signed in May orders the Ministry of Health and Social Services to establish price objectives for pharmaceutical manufacturers. Failure will encourage the Ministry of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission to “undertake implementation measures against any anti-competitive practice”, as well as other consequences.

In addition, Trump introduced plans to launch “the price of the most favored nations medicines”.

“The principle is simple – whatever the lowest price paid for a medication in other developed countries, this is the price that Americans will pay,” Trump said in the White House in May when the Order signs. “Certain prescription drugs and pharmaceutical prices will be reduced almost immediately from 50 to 80 to 90%.”

“We are going to equalize,” said Trump. “We will all pay the same thing. We will pay what Europe pays.”

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The United States Ministry of Health and Social Services in Washington. (Mark Wilson / Andrew Harnik)

However, Ippolito said Trump’s ability to reduce the cost of medicines will depend on the ability of the administration to present to pharmaceutical companies a “credible threat” to put them on submission.

“The administration, in a realistic way, does not have a ton of lever to force drug manufacturers to change their behavior,” said Ippolito. “I think it’s practical reality.”

In addition, Ippolito said that Congress had the power to establish new laws that would have “deep implications for the drug markets”. But Trump’s opinions on the issue may not attract the very support of his own party members, he said.

“Congress Republicans are generally more hesitant to do daring things about drug prices, and the administration, the president, seems to have very different opinions,” said Ippolito. “And so I think he probably looks at the congress and sees some people who may not share his vision on this particular question.”

Michael Cannon, director of studies on health policies at the Washington -based Libertarian Reflection Group, said the effort is equivalent to price controls, because the decree is not limited to government programs – it also applies to the free market and the private sector.

“These are government prices checks,” Cannon told Fox News Digital on Monday. “It is even worse than government prices controls, because it is the government prices controls without the authorization of the congress.”

Price control occurs when the government intervenes to impose limits on the quantity that can be charged for various goods or services on the free market.

Although price controls can reduce costs for some consumers, they have been largely ineffective in American history. For example, President Richard Nixon implemented price checks in the 1970s to try to correct wages and other costs – which turned against and led to the gas crisis and other shortages across the country.

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Price control occurs when the government intervenes to impose limits on the quantity that can be charged for various goods or services on the free market. (Images Kevin Carter / Getty)

Meanwhile, Cannon said that there are many other avenues that could lead to a reduction in drug prices, including Medicaid, Medicare reforms and tax code. But all these options would imply legislative power.

“These things require the congress, for the most part, and it is difficult to pass anything by the congress which would reduce unnecessary expenses in the health sector,” said Cannon.

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The White House sent letters to the following pharmaceutical companies on Thursday, pleading for the drop in drug prices: Abbvie, Amgen, Astrazeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, Emd Serono, Genentech, Gilead, Gsk, Johnson & Johnson, Mervartis, Novartis PFIZER, IMPRESS and SANOFI.