Remarks transcript, Aug 31, 2026 (Donald Trump)

Thank you very much. This is, to me, a really big day, one of the biggest ever, because this announcement is as big as it gets, medically. I think it just can't get—certainly, when you talk about medical and dollars in the same sentences, this doesn't get bigger.

So I'm thrilled to announce a major expansion of one of our signature affordability initiatives, something that people have been trying to get for years, for decades. And, well, I'm not even sure that other Presidents tried. They didn't try because the chances of them getting it were very slim. They would never have been able to do it. And that's most favored nation drug pricing.

Biggest thing you'll hear. You know, if we would cut drugs for like one-eighth of a percent, it was like a big deal. We're cutting them numbers that—you'll hear in a second—are astronomical.

Nine new pharmaceutical companies are committing to deliver their lowest drug prices for American patients. They're largely standing behind me.

I want to thank the president of Astellas Pharma medical, Michael Petroutsas; CEO of BeOne Medicines, John Oyler; CEO of BridgeBio, Neil Kumar; senior vice president of CSL, Julie Schiffman; CEO of Sun Pharma, Rick Ashcroft; president of Kyowa Kirin, Steve Schaefer; executive vice president of Teva Pharmaceuticals U.S.A., Christine Fox; CEO of UCB, Dr. Jean-Christophe Tellier.

I think I they—got those names almost right. [ Laughter ] That's a group of very interesting names. We'll have to talk about that later.

But congratulations, because the job you're doing is amazing, and your companies are doing amazingly, and big contribution you're making to health.

Thanks as well to Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.; Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick; Administrator of the Centers for Medicine and Medicaid Services Dr. Mehmet Oz; Chief Counselor and nominee for Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services Chris Klomp; and future FDA Commissioner Dr. Heidi Overton. Great people.

For decades, Americans paid the highest drug prices anywhere in the world by far. It wasn't even close. We were ripped off by the pharmaceutical companies, and we were ripped off, more than anything, by other countries throughout the world. And we never had a President that wanted to fight for us.

But under the most-favored-nation agreement that I negotiated at great length and at great—really, lost some friends over it—some very good friends. It wasn't easy. But under that most-favored-nation agreement, we now pay the lowest price paid by other countries anywhere in the world.

So we went from the highest price for pharmaceuticals, for drugs, to the lowest. We've slashed the cost of dozens of commonly used medications and, ultimately, everything, all drugs, by price differences of 400, 500, and even 600 percent. Drug prices have gone down and will go down 50, 60, 70, 80 percent.

There's never been an announcement like that. It won't get covered. If it were Democrats sitting here, it would be the biggest story in the last 20 years, but it won't get covered. But that's why I speak up. I have to speak up, and the people behind me speak up also. But it's the biggest thing to happen in medicine, I think.

This has a tremendous impact on health care because, as you know, pharmaceuticals—medicine is such a big part of health. So, when you're reducing it by numbers like we're talking about, it has a huge impact on health care.

Since launching our most-favored-nation initiative less than one year ago, my administration has forged agreements with the world's 17 top pharmaceutical companies—and some of them you've met at other meetings—to offer their medicines at these steep discounts.

And, with today's announcement, we now have 26 companies representing 90 percent of the domestic pharmaceutical market, and the other 10 percent are also coming in. They have no choice.

In total, these agreements are projected to save Americans more than $600 billion over a very short period of time. Think of that: Six hundred billion. That's savings to Americans. Nobody else could have done it.

The United States represents less than 5 percent of the global population and only consumes 13 percent of all prescription drugs. So, when you think of that, it's a—it's pretty amazing. So it's 13 percent of all prescription drugs, yet, for years, pharmaceutical companies have taken 75 percent of their profits from the United States.

So, with a small percentage of the drugs, they make most of their money from the United States, meaning they're ripping us off, but not any longer. We're subsidizing, and we were subsidizing the entire world at our expense.

And I had to call the leaders of other countries and say, "You're going to have to raise your drug prices." And they laughed at me when I said it. And then, all of a sudden, they said it in a certain way, and they didn't laugh any longer. And they all agreed. You know, they had to agree.

Now other countries are paying more so that Americans can pay less. We had to get their prices up in order to get our prices down. And they went up very considerably, and we went down by much more because the world is a bigger place than us. So they went down proportionately much more.

For example, we have slashed the cost of the weight loss drugs like Ozempic by more than $1,800 per year. IVF patients are seeing savings on fertility drugs of more than $6,000 per birth.

These savings are available to all Americans at TrumpRx.gov, which has turned out to be an amazing thing. That was named by Bobby and Oz. That was not named by me. They said, "We'd like to do it." I said: "Do what you want. But you sure it's going to work?"

It works.

It's more than worked. Actually, it's the hottest thing there is, which now has more than 800 drugs available to it at tremendous discounts, at discounts that nobody has ever even imagined before.

Our most-favored-nations discounts represent the largest reduction in prescription drug prices in the history of our country and in the history of medicine. It's the largest drug discounts, the largest price reductions in the history of medicine. I would say that's pretty big. And today we're taking a major step forward.

So, when you say we got the biggest drug reductions in the history of medicine, typically that would be a front-page story. It won't be. It's not even believable, but it won't be.

Our most-favored-nations discounts represent things that nobody could even imagine, including availability—not only the biggest price reductions but availability. These companies have agreed to offer all of their drugs to State Medicaid programs at most-favored-nations prices, which is a tremendous discount, which should bring down the cost of your care—your medical care by tremendous amounts.

They'll also offer all new medications to American consumers at the lowest cost anywhere in the world. Every drug now that you see—and almost 90 percent, and we're going to be at a hundred percent very shortly—will be the lowest prices available anywhere in the world.

Anybody that's lower than us, we therefore meet that price. So—and it's like a downward spiral, and nobody thought it was possible to get, and I understand why they thought that.

These new discounts apply to medicines used to treat many costly chronic and rare conditions, including Parkinson's, liver disease, and various other cancers—almost all other cancers, actually.

In addition, the companies are committing billions of dollars to research and development in the United States, where they're moving in from other countries.

These deals—one of the reasons is tariffs, I hate to say—we're doing really well. We have over almost $20 trillion, now, of money coming into the United States that we would never have had. We were losing money. Now we're setting records. No country has ever been even close to the $20 trillion of investment made in our country right now, as we speak.

These deals, along with my "America first" trade policy, have already generated $640 billion in new investments in the United States having to do with this subject.

And the pharmaceutical industry has been creating jobs like they've never done before: over 100,000 new jobs in this industry alone. We have every industry.

And right now there are more people working in the United States than ever before. We have never had as many people working as we have today, which I think is a great stat.

I especially want to thank UCB, Sun Pharma, Teva, and Astellas for contributing a combined 290 metric tons of active pharmaceutical ingredients to our strategic reserve. We have a strategic reserve that is amazing that a lot of people don't know about, but they've just built it up, topping it out.

These materials are critical for lifesaving medicines used to treat seizures, bacterial infections, high blood pressure, and organ failure—and especially in times of need. We have a stockpile, and it's an amazing thing. And by stockpiling such materials in vast quantities, we can ensure Americans are never left without them in the event of an emergency.

So, if we have an emergency, including wars and lots of other things, we are fully equipped to handle it. But nobody is going to attack us. You know why? Because they're smart.

For decades, politicians from both parties promised to make health care more affordable, but they all failed, every one of them. Drug prices went up. Every year, drug price—except for my fourth year in the first term, they went down one-eighth of 1 percent. And I had a news conference to announce this great—and now they're going down 50, 60, 70, 80 percent. Think of it, what we've done.

Under the Trump administration, for the first time ever, drug prices are coming down, and they are coming down very dramatically. This will be significantly—I mean, nobody has ever seen anything like the significance and the amount—lower the cost of health care overall by substantial amounts. In other words, health care should now—because the drugs and the medicines, everything you need for health care, is approximately, they're saying, 50 percent. Well, if the drugs are coming down at numbers like we're talking about, health care should be following and, I think, very rapidly. I think Bobby and Oz will talk about that.

So now we need Congress to expand these agreements and codify them into permanent law. We want to make it permanent. This is now under the Trump administration.

Now, I don't know if it's really that necessary to make it permanent because I can't imagine a person sitting here saying, "I want to double and triple and quadruple your drug prices." I don't see that happening. But I think it's a good thing to do. I just don't imagine that anybody would be brave enough to sit at this position and say: "We're going to—Trump reduced your prices by numbers that nobody has ever seen. We're going to raise them back up." So I don't see it. But it's still good to have it codified, have it approved by Congress.

And I just want to thank everybody behind me. These have been incredible people. These are brilliant people leading brilliant companies and doing absolutely incredible work. Some of the things that they're finding over the last 2 years have been incredible. Nobody can believe some of the medicines that are taking place—some of the diseases that are disastrous, that lead to death, where the people actually walk away in a week, in two weeks, and they're completely healed. It's—it's really incredible.

So I want to thank you all for being here, and maybe I'll ask a couple of you to say a few words. We'll start, maybe—Oz and Bobby, do you want to say something, please?

Go ahead.

And then we'll ask some of the CEOs to talk.

Please.

Thank you very much, President Trump, for your leadership. Today brings to the total of 26 companies that have now made agreements with us. These agreements cover 9 out of the 10 drug most —9 out of 10 drugs that are used by Americans. This could have a dramatic impact on medical pricing and on health—public health in our country.

Probably the biggest change in public health prior to this—and it's dwarfed by this announcement—was in 1962 when my uncle signed the Food—the amendment to the Food, Drug, and Cosmetics Act, and that signing was triggered by the thalidomide scandal.

But nothing changes the public health business like this. We are lowering prices dramatically so that Americans will be paying, instead of the highest prices in the world, the lowest prices of any developed nation in the world.

And this could not have happened under any other President except for this one. Everybody tried sincerely: both Bushes, President Biden, President Obama. They were unable to do it because of the inertia that is built into this system to prevent this reform from happening.

President Trump, as I've said before, called me and Oz at every hour of the day and made it very clear that our jobs were dependent on this getting through. [ Laughter ] And we pulled up——

I didn't want to fire a Kennedy. [ Laughter ] I couldn't. The thought of firing this guy—I wasn't going to do that.

Go ahead, Bobby.

It—they were very, very emotional conversations. Let me put it that way.

President Trump was able to attract to this administration an extraordinary caliber of people, and one of those is Chris Klomp, who led the negotiations. And I don't think anybody else could have done this. Chris Klomp walked away—to join this administration, to join my agency—a billion-dollar company that he built. And he built that company, which was a platform for hospitals sharing their medical records, and it was completely built on his integrity. To get—to succeed at that company, a lot of people have to trust you. And he was able to bring that quality and that virtue into these negotiations.

And I want to thank the CEOs here today for their vision, for their commitment to something other than short-term profits, but a long-term commitment to our country through patriotic values and to human health.

If I can add one thing from the front lines. TrumpRx, which you asked about, is incredibly popular with pharmacists. And the most common thing that they're saying is it's good for them, for their business. And when they see the patients and they come back, for example, on GLP–1 medications, the usual thing they say is, "You look wonderful," because they've lost a lot of weight and they feel healthy and they're driving BEVs they couldn't have afforded.

Because of that, as an update, Medicare, 2 months ago offered at $50 a month—anyone listening right now, pay attention to this—$50 a month, if you're eligible, be able to get access to these GLP–1 medications that the president highlighted earlier were $1,200 or more. The so-called "fat shot," as you have called it, sir.

Could never have gotten those prices even close to that. Now we have—600,000 seniors already, just in 2 months, have signed up to get these medications. And we project we'll actually be able to save money for the taxpayer because the savings aren't only in dollars; they're in saved lives. Less hospitalization, less complications from high blood pressure, diabetes, and all the ravages of obesity because we got prices where they need to be.

And we can go on and on, but most favored nation pricing is on TrumpRx.gov. We're going to do a separate event just around that topic, but it is an incredibly big success story what has been achieved with that website.

Thank you.

I want to just also thank John Brooks, who works closely with Chris. He runs all of Medicare. Inma Hernandez and Rujul Desai, they run the drug negotiations section.

To echo what the Secretary said, they would never have joined an administration normally. These are the top-tier people in the country in these areas. And I think all the CEOs may comment on this. They went head-to-head with these very brave leaders who are willing to take a risk, but they also went head-to-head because they were equals on parity and could negotiate these deals.

Howard.

So the Commerce Department is involved because we want these companies to reshore, right? Because reshoring produces national security, right? We need our drugs made in America, and then that brings jobs and investment in America.

So the—just this group, $19.6 billion today—just today—taking us to $638 billion of all the deals that the president has made—$638 billion in just pharmaceuticals coming.

So not only do you have the jobs, but you have the driving down the cost of drugs in America, right?

We all talk about affordability. Drug costs are the number one cost, right? And you got to take care of your family, and the president is driving down those costs.

So driving down costs today from all these companies. You now have 90 percent of the drugs covered. You've got building—building and jobs. And you're also protecting national security. That's three of the most important things in America, all today.

And it's all thanks to you because nobody thought that this was possible. When you first brought this up, Bobby and I were talking with Oz——

No.

——saying, "Oh, my God, this will never happen." And now you've covered 90 percent of America with your power of energy and your way of thinking innovatively and understanding where this country needs to go.

So thank you, Mr. President. You've done it.

Thank you, Howard. And you know, just the enthusiasm. You know, you hear these three guys. I hear them all the time. And maybe they're more enthusiastic about this. Everybody—nobody can believe what's happening.

Just take a look at this: $638 billion of new pharmaceutical investment in the country. Look at the chart. Going up like a rocket, and it's going up a lot higher than that.

And then, over here, they have another one: $600 billion in lower drug prices under Trump. Under Biden, a $550 billion higher. So you add that up, you're talking about numbers that nobody even imagined possible.

Could I ask some of the companies to say a couple of words, please?

I'll get started. First of all, thank you, President Trump. And I'd be remiss not to say what an honor it's been to work with you and your incredible team and making sure we stay focused on putting American patients first.

So today I'm representing Astellas, and I wanted to announce that our Medicaid prices will be matched with those in developing countries. And further, to your point——

That's great.

——we're committed to ensure that our new drug pricing will be aligned with global markets.

And as you'd mentioned earlier, Astellas——

Which were unbelievably low, right, compared to us? [ Laughter ]

Unbelievable.

We were the highest in the world, and now we're the lowest in the world. Amazing.

Please.

So, no, furthermore, to your point earlier, we want to also announce that Astellas will be nota- —donating to the U.S. Government the active drug substance for tacrolimus, which is used post-transplantation, to ensure that we secure our supply.

Great.

And that's consistent with our focus on patients, along with our cutting-edge innovation in multiple manufacturing partnerships across this great country.

So thank you, Mr. President.

Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Please.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President, for bringing us together to expand lifesaving medicines for American patients. Thank you to the team for making this happen too.

The fight against cancer is far from over. More than 2 million patients a year that are Americans are diagnosed with this terrible and horrific disease. And although in certain areas we've made tremendous progress, other areas like liver cancer and pancreatic cancer are very dire for patients and continue to take far too many lives.

That's why I founded BeOne Medicines. We're a company that is developing breakthrough cancer therapies, and we, from the beginning, have been trying to make them more accessible to patients.

Today we're advancing that goal by providing one of our oncology medicines to Medicaid at a deeply reduced price, and we're committing to pricing future medicines in the U.S. in line with other key developed markets.

We're also investing nearly $11 billion in U.S. research, development, and manufacturing through 2029. And this is helping to strengthen America's leadership in biopharmaceutical innovation.

I want to thank you very much, Mr. President.

Thank you. Great job.

Thank you.

Great job. Thank you.

Thank you.

Please.

Well, thank you, Mr. President. Thanks to everyone in the administration who made today possible, including, critically, Mr. John Brooks for BridgeBio.

It's a privilege to be here on behalf of BridgeBio, but probably more importantly, the 30 million Americans suffering with rare genetic conditions. I'm grateful to the administration and you, Mr. President, that you've helped us come through on our commitment to provide most broadly and most accessibly the medicines that we make.

And I might say, alluding to your earlier point, that as an entrepreneur and founder in America, partnerships like today's partnership allow us to reinvest in technology and innovation on our shores to bring ever more medicines to the patients that deserve them.

So thank you.

And tremendous progress has been made recently on cancer and, someday, the cure. But tremendous progress has been made, more than has been made in many, many years. So a lot of things—a lot of good forces at work.

Please.

Mr. President, thank you so much for your leadership and for bringing industry together in support of American patients.

I'm Julie Schiffman. I'm so proud to represent CSL, a company driven to serve lives since 1916. We join our peers to support these agreements, which will lower prices for medicines and strengthen U.S. manufacturing.

As one of the world's largest plasma-derived biotechnology companies, CSL employs nearly 19,000 Americans across 44 States, and our planned $1.5 billion investment in Illinois will help onshore our end-to-end production of plasma-derived therapies, including immunoglobulins, which will allow us to reliably serve patients with serious and rare diseases for generations to come.

Thank you.

Great. Great job. Thank you.

Come here. [ Laughter ] Thank you very much.

Chris, are you going to say a couple of words, please? Because you are a star.

Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Deputy Administrator and Director of Medicare Christopher Klomp . Thanks, Mr. President.

And we have to do—and then we're going to get back to the companies.

I appreciate it. You know, today is fundamentally about affordability. You've heard that loud and clear. You've heard some big numbers. Council of Economic Advisers projecting $600 billion of savings for Americans in aggregate over a 10-year period.

Two things stand out to me. Number one, this has been a matter of months since we stood here and made the first announcement. These savings are things you would expect over a multiyear period, legislatively and otherwise. It's been less than 1 year—months. That's incredible.

And number two, one number: over a billion dollars of out-of-pocket savings to consumers just in the last handful of months since we launched TrumpRx——

Right.

——since we launched GLP–1s. That's a billion dollars of savings not to insurers, not to drug companies or anyone else, to everyday Americans in their pocket. That's extraordinary.

And we talk about these big numbers. We talk about these things in aggregate, but the privilege is mine to get to hear from individual patients and beneficiaries every week. And they tell stories about how they were paying a thousand dollars for a drug. They now pay $50 for a GLP–1. They were trying to conceive, and it was out of reach, and now they can actually have lifesaving medications. They can have reproductive medicines.

These are real impacts for everyday Americans in their pockets. It's affordability. It's the President fighting for affordability. It's the President honoring a promise to fight for affordability and doing it in one of the most conspicuous places possible, which is at the pharmacy counter.

So thank you, Mr. President.

Thank you.

It's been an absolute privilege. We're so grateful.

Thank you very much. Great job you're doing too.

By the way, affordability—so prices are coming down. We inherited, a year and a half ago, the highest prices and the worst inflation in the history of our country, and we brought them down a lot.

But what's happening now with prescription drugs and drugs is something that nobody thought was possible.

Okay, please.

Yes. Mr. President, thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. I'm Steve Schaefer on behalf of Kyowa Kirin. We specialize in making rare and—and intractable cures for patients that have extremely rare diseases. There are 30,000 rare diseases in the world—in the world, and there are only 10 percent of those diseases have treatments. That's what we do.

We appreciate partnering with you and your administration to bring low—drug prices down for the American patients. And like the other companies that are here, we stand ready and willing; we are bringing our manufacturing onshore, so much so that by the next 2 years—right now 5 percent of our drugs that are manufactured in the U.S. are for American patients. In the next 2 years, over 95 percent of drugs that are manufactured in the United States will be for American patients.

Wow.

The other thing we continue to do——

Great.

——is continue to innovate in the U.S., and we—our commitment to innovation in the U.S. and creating a world-leading global infrastructure that is led by the United States is unwavering.

So we thank you, Mr. President. We look forward to working with you and your administration, and we appreciate the opportunity.

So you say there are 30,000 rare diseases?

Yes, sir.

That's one I never heard of. That's a lot of disease. And you're on it, right?

Yes, sir. We hope to be.

That's a full-time job. [ Laughter ] That's pretty—that's not easy. Congratulations.

Thank you, sir.

I heard you're doing fantastic.

Thank you.