When the COVID-19 pandemic swept across the globe in 2020, hospitals across the United States found themselves scrambling for masks, gloves, and life-saving medical supplies.
Despite being a global pharmaceutical powerhouse, the United States was caught off guard.
Fast forward to today and not much has changed, warns Michael Einhorn, founder of Dealmed, a New York-based medical supply distributor.
The U.S. generic drug supply chain still heavily relies on global production, with a significant portion of ingredients and raw materials sourced from China, he says.
Industry experts say China’s dominance in the pharmaceutical supply chain didn’t happen overnight.
They attribute it to Beijing’s strategic push to dominate key industries, systemic issues within the U.S. health care system, and a lack of decisive action in Washington to break this dependence.
Even if the United States stops buying drugs directly from China, it will still be relying on countries that source their ingredients—APIs and KSMs—from there, Einhorn says.
“Without the KSMs, you can’t make APIs. Without APIs, you can’t make finished drugs.”
On April 1, the Trump administration launched a Section 232 investigation to assess national security risks tied to pharmaceutical imports.
Trump suggested placing levies on imported pharmaceuticals.
“We don’t make our own drugs anymore,” Trump said on April 15. “And all I have to do is impose a tariff.”
But tariffs alone won’t be enough to bring back manufacturing, according to Victor Suarez, retired U.S. Army colonel and visiting senior fellow at the Council on Strategic Risks.
He points to history for solutions: American manufacturers turned the tide during WWII by pivoting to wartime production.
Today, he argues, the companies need incentives like tax breaks and the country needs a strategic reserve for medicines—just like the oil reserve it has maintained since the 1970s oil crisis.
After years of offshoring production to China and other countries, the United States lost the ability to produce many life-saving drugs, according to Rosemary Gibson, co-author of “China RX: Exposing the Risks of America’s Dependence on China for Medicine.”
“We have a system that is perfectly designed for catastrophic failure and significant loss of human life, and that has to change,” she said in a recent interview with Epoch TV’s “American Thought Leaders.”
As part of the ongoing investigation, the government is collecting information from a variety of stakeholders, including industry leaders, trade organizations, academics, and other thought leaders.
Many national security hawks hope to see a well-designed strategic plan from the U.S. government to address this dangerous dependence on China.
It’s a man-made problem, but a fix is possible, Gibson said.
—Emel Akan
BOOKMARKS
Vice President JD Vance warned that the United States might soon withdraw from peacemaking negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, if both countries remained unwilling to reach an agreement. “We’ve issued a very explicit proposal to both the Russians and the Ukrainians, and it’s time for them to either say ‘yes,’ or for the United States to walk away from this process,” Vance said on Wednesday.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is teaming up with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to revamp the U.S. immigration database. “This overhaul eliminates fees for database searches, breaks down silos for accurate results, streamlines mass status checks, and integrates criminal records, immigration timelines, and addresses,” according to a DHS statement.
Five Democrat Senators led by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) are calling for an investigation intoTrump’s recent changes to the Social Security Administration (SSA). The changes include a reduction in workforce and the closure of several office buildings, which the senators allege “have already created a chilling effect among the agency’s workforce,” according to a letter they sent to SSA.
JD Vance is standing behind Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, in spite of new, anonymous allegations that Hegseth improperly shared war plans with his wife, brother, and attorney through Signal chat. “I think he’s doing a great job … I wish, frankly, the press talked more about that, and not about anonymous sourcing from random staffers,” Vance said.
Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) will not seek reelection next year, after more than four decades in Congress. “The decision of whether to run for re-election has not been easy … but in my heart, I know it’s time to pass the torch,” he wrote on X.
—Stacy Robinson
