Last week, Trump signed an executive order directing the U.S. Trade Representative and Commerce secretary to “ensure foreign countries are not engaged in practices that purposefully and unfairly undercut market prices and drive price hikes in the United States.”
The newest order will also enforce “most-favored-nation pricing” on drugmakers if they refuse to offer it themselves. It also calls for the pathways to be made for consumers to buy drugs directly from manufacturers, circumventing middlemen.
Khanna put Trump’s order into a bill verbatim and is calling for Republicans to rally behind it.
“The language is his language exactly because we didn’t want to give any reason for the Republicans to oppose us,” Khanna told The Hill.
So far, Republican Reps. Anna Paulina Luna (Fla.) and Andy Biggs (Ariz.) have signed on as co-sponsors.
“If they want to call it someone else’s bill, I’m fine with that. You know they wanted it to be ultimately a Republican bill and Rep. Luna be the lead and that’s fine. I’m flexible. I just wanted the bill to get passed,” said Khanna.
When asked if he’s essentially calling Republicans’ bluff by introducing this bill, Khanna said he’s aiming to “get something done” for Americans.
“If we can get this done, it would be enormous. And I actually want to get this legislation through and I’m hopeful that with Trump leading the charge on the executive order, that we would get the vast majority of Republicans to support it,” the House Democrat said.
“And we have a lot of Democrats like me who work with [Sen.] Bernie Sanders [I-Vt.] to have legislation taking on Big Pharma. So, it should be one area where the country to work together.”
Remember: Trump pushed for the “most-favored nation” policy during his first term, signing a similar executive order in 2020, but it was blocked by a court order and not implemented. This policy was not included in the GOP’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” with House Energy and Commerce Committee staffers saying matters related to this policy would have to be considered later.
