TMTPOST --   U.S. President   Donald Trump on Monday reiterated   his   pledge   to   substantially cut   drug prices   as the   deadline he set for   pharmaceutical   companies to lower   prices looms.

Credit：Freepik

Trump said he would slash drug prices by    1,400% to   1,500%.   "Going to do a number on costs of drugs in US," he said during the briefing.   The remarks   reaffirmed   his aggressive stance on pharmaceutical pricing   and higher sectoral   tariffs.

Trump   two   weeks ago   has made   one of his   boldest   claims in his   promise   to reduce drug prices. "You know, we ’ ve cut drug prices by 1,200, 1,300 and 1,400, 1,500%," he told reporters on   August 10. He   noted   the reductions will start over the next two to three months. "I don ’ t mean 50%. I mean 14- 1,500%,"   he said.  

The White House   in late   July   said Trump   had sent letters to 17 major pharmaceutical firms in   the West outlining the steps they must take to lower the price of U.S. prescription drugs to "most favored nation" ( MFN ) levels by September   29.   

Companies to receive these letters include AbbVie, Amgen, AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, EMD Serono, Roche ’ s subsidiary Genentech, Gilead, GSK, Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Novartis, Novo Nordisk, Pfizer, Regeneron and Sanofi. Trump in the letter warned if these companies "refuse to step up," the U.S. government will deploy every tool in its "arsenal to protect American families from continued abusive drug pricing practices," without specifying the possible measures.

The Trump administration   has intensified the threat   of tariffs   on   pharmaceutical imports   since   it   in April opened   a so-called Section 232 investigation into how importing certain   pharmaceutical products   affects national security.   The move   was   widely   seen as a   prelude to initiating tariffs on drugs.

Trump during a   Cabinet   meeting on July 8 disclosed steep tariffs on the pharmaceutical sector will be announced "very soon", while he could offer the pharmaceutical manufacturers at least a year for transition of their production to the U.S. before implementing the tariffs up to 200%.  

"We ’ re going to give people about a year, year and a half to come in, and after that they're going to be tariffed," Trump said   in the meeting. "If they have to bring the pharmaceuticals into the country, … they're going to be tariffed at a very high rate — like 200%."

Trump a week   later said he could   impose impose tariffs on pharmaceuticals by August 1   and that levies on semiconductors could come soon as well.   "Probably at the end of the month, and we ’ re going to start off with a low tariff and give the pharmaceutical companies a year or so to build, and then we ’ re going to make it a very high tariff," Trump said   on July 15.  

Trump earlier this month suggested   he would   impose   even more   hefty tariffs   on pharmaceutical   imports. "We'll be putting a initially small tariff on pharmaceuticals, but in one year — one and a half years, maximum — it's going to go to 150%. And then it ’ s going to go to 250%, because we want pharmaceuticals made in our country," Trump said in the CNBC interview   on August 5.