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President Donald Trump announced on October 10, 2025, that AstraZeneca has agreed to provide its prescription medicines to Medicaid at most-favored-nation pricing, a pledge meant to ensure Americans will not pay more than the lowest price the company charges anywhere in the world. The announcement, delivered from the White House, marks another concrete result from the administration’s push to force lower drug prices out of Big Pharma.
Most-favored-nation pricing, as explained by the administration, ties U.S. costs to the lowest prices paid in comparable developed countries and aims to end what officials call global freeloading on American consumers. This policy is being shepherded through HHS and CMS actions intended to bring Medicaid pricing in line with those international benchmarks, a direct attempt to rebalance decades of price discrimination.
This AstraZeneca commitment comes on the heels of a similar agreement with Pfizer and follows President Trump’s May 12, 2025 executive order directing the government to pursue MFN pricing for prescription drugs. The sequence of deals shows the administration is translating rhetoric into leverage, using trade and regulatory pressure to extract concrete concessions from multinationals.
Conservatives should applaud the use of American leverage to stop multinational firms from charging U.S. patients sky-high prices while dumping cheaper versions abroad. For too long, pharmaceutical giants have treated the U.S. like an ATM; forcing MFN pricing is the kind of bold, market-correcting action that protects consumers without resorting to nationalization. The market’s reaction to the news—shares moving on the headlines—makes clear the private sector sees this as meaningful policy, not just empty talk.
Of course, the usual critics and lobbyists will howl that these deals are cosmetic or that complex middlemen like pharmacy benefit managers still need fixing, and some outlets have raised those concerns. But the central point remains: when the administration brings drugmakers to the table and extracts binding commitments to lower prices for government programs, Americans win and the status quo of offshoring discounts ends.
This should not be the end of the fight. Conservatives must insist on transparency, enforceable terms, and oversight so that promised discounts actually reach patients rather than vanish into corporate accounting tricks. If the White House follows through and holds companies accountable, MFN pricing could be a durable victory for taxpayers and a model for future America First economic action.
The broader lesson is simple: standing up to corporate special interests and foreign price controls works when the administration uses every tool at its disposal. Voters wanting real relief from soaring out-of-pocket drug costs should judge this policy by results, and supporters of lower prices must keep demanding that promises become permanent reforms rather than temporary headlines.
