“I love Europe, and I want to see Europe go good,” Trump said on Wednesday at the Davos, Switzerland, meeting. “But it’s not heading in the right direction.”
But the president conceded that Europe is doing one thing better: keeping its drug prices low.
“A pill that costs $10 in London costs $130. Think—it costs $10 in London, costs $130 in New York or in Los Angeles,” he said to murmurs from the crowd.
Trump said pharma companies did not initially believe countries would be willing to change prices. Trump noted in his remarks that he first approached French President Emmanuel Macron about increasing drug prices, but Macron refused.
“I said, ‘Emmanuel, you’re going to have to lift the price of that pill,” Trump said.
Trump said that threatening a 25% tariff on French goods, including wines and champagne, sealed the deal. Macron’s office disputed Trump’s assertion that he pressured the French president into lowering drug prices.
Included in the post was a gif of Trump with animated “Fake news!” text overlaid on the image.
“When you look at what underpins R&D in our industry, it’s been primarily in the United States,” Narasimhan said. “The United States is the source of more than half the profits of the industry, and without the United States, you wouldn’t have all of these innovations, all these incredible medicines.”
Narasimham emphasized the need for a “more balanced approach” to funding R&D, implying that other countries should pay more for U.S.-produced pharmaceuticals. He pointed to Trump’s deal with the 17 drug companies as a “reasonable” solution.
“These deals are being announced as transformative when, in fact, they really just nibble around the margins in terms of what is really driving high prices for prescription drugs in the U.S.,” Dr. Benjamin Rome, a health policy researcher at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, told the outlet.
The Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment.
