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**Trump Claims Tariff Threat Secured Lower Drug Prices with AstraZeneca Deal**
WASHINGTON D.C. – President Donald Trump has announced a second deal with a major pharmaceutical company, AstraZeneca, to offer lower-cost prescription drugs directly to American consumers. The deal, unveiled Friday at the White House with AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot, follows a similar agreement with Pfizer last month. Trump hailed the agreement as “another historic achievement” in his quest to lower drug prices, promising potentially “way over a hundred percent” discounts on medications. He even cited specific examples like inhalers being discounted by “654 percent,” prompting questions about the feasibility of such deep cuts.
The deals are the result of Trump’s aggressive approach using the threat of tariffs on imported pharmaceuticals. He stated plainly that the AstraZeneca deal would not have been possible without his threat of 100% tariffs on foreign pharmaceutical manufacturers.
According to Pfizer, the deal allowed them to dodge tariffs by building manufacturing plants in the US. Soriot also admitted to negotiating a delay to any tariffs against AstraZeneca in exchange for a commitment to increase U.S. investments to $50 billion by 2030 and to build a new drug substance manufacturing center in Virginia.
Trump administration officials, like Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr., openly celebrated the leverage gained through the tariff threat. Trump has long advocated for “most favored nation prices,” aiming to lower US drug costs to the levels seen in other developed countries. The administration plans to launch an online marketplace, TrumpRx, to facilitate direct-to-consumer sales.
While the specifics of the deals and the actual discounts remain to be seen, and the TrumpRx website has yet to launch, the agreements mark a significant step in Trump’s push to lower prescription drug prices using tariffs as a key negotiating tactic, a policy he tried unsuccessfully during his first term.
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