Wednesday, January 11, 2017

Trump Targets Pharmaceutical Industry Overseas Manufacturing



During his press conference this morning, President-elect Donald Trump signaled he would use his anti-trade, protectionist thinking to go after the pharmaceutical industry.

In his first press conference since July, Trump said pharmaceutical companies have been "getting away with murder" and that "We have to get our drug industry coming back.They're leaving left and right." He means by this, of course, that he wants to ignore the basic principles of comparative advantage and coerce drug makers into manufacturing drugs in the United States.

He also said that "There is very little bidding on drugs,...We are going to start bidding properly."

Of course, you get prices lower by allowing free market competition, not by government bidding. It's government bidding, that is central planning, which appears to be what Trump is focused on.

The idea that Trump is going to be a serious off-the-wall major league central planner will become obvious for all except the delusional in very short order.

 -RW


2 comments:

  1. So Trump will repeal Bushcare? Or at least the no negotiation portion?

    ReplyDelete
  2. If the government is going to procure something, what in economics or libertarianism makes you favor one procurement scheme over another?

    ReplyDelete