US PRESIDENT DONALD Trump has told Americans that he plans to compel pharmaceutical companies to lower the cost of prescription medications in the US, even if it means countries in Europe have to pay more.

Addressing media at the White House, Trump criticised “Big Pharma” for what he described as “profiteering” and charging higher prices for prescriptions in the US than they do elsewhere in the world. 

He said that he wants pharmaceutical companies to “voluntarily” lower the prices they charge to Americans – but that if they don’t, he will “use the power of the federal government” to force price reductions.

Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has introduced various trade-related measures that have caused concern for the state of the global economy, especially his infamous tariffs.

He has turned his attention several times to the pharmaceuticals sector, including name-checking Ireland last month when discussing the world’s biggest pharmaceutical exporters. 

Speaking today, Trump said that “the drug lobby is the strongest lobby in the country”.

“Starting today, the United States will no longer subsidise the healthcare of foreign countries, which is what we were doing,” he claimed.

He added: “We’re subsidising others’ healthcare, countries where they paid a small fraction for the same drug of what we pay many, many times more for, and we’ll no longer tolerate profiteering and price gouging from Big Pharma.”

He said that 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, these countries. The European Union has been brutal, brutal, and the drug companies actually told me stories – it was just brutal, how they forced them.”

“Europe is going to have to pay a little bit more… Basically, we’re all going to pay the same. We’re going to pay what Europe is going to pay,” he said.

Trump raised a World Trade Organisation principle called “most favored nation”, which is aimed at preventing discrimination between a country and its trading partners, levelling the playing field for international trade. 

“We are going to pay the lowest price there is in the world,” he said. “Whoever is paying the lowest price, we will look at that price and we will say that’s the price we’re going to pay.”

“The biggest thing we’re going to do is we’re going to tell those countries like those represented by the European Union that you know that game is up, sorry – and if they want to get cute, then they don’t have to sell cars into the United States anymore.

Trump suggested that some prescription drug and pharmaceutical prices will be reduced “almost immediately by 50% to 80 to 90%”

“Big Pharma will either abide by this principle voluntarily or 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 reduction,” he said.

He added that his administration will “also cut out the middlemen”.

“We’re going to totally cut out the famous middlemen. Nobody knows who they are, middlemen. I’ve been hearing the term for 25 years, middlemen. 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.”

During his first term in office, Trump tried to cut medicine prices in the US with a similar proposal.

However, his plan fell through in the face of strong opposition from the pharmaceutical industry.