For want of a nail the shoe was lost;
for want of a shoe the horse was lost;
and for want of a horse the rider was lost, being overtaken and slain by the enemy, all for want of care about a horse-shoe nail.
-Benjamin Franklin, 1758
China is the United States’ pharmacy – it decides if we have the medicines we need to keep our citizens healthy.
When the health of our nation is put in the hands of a hostile foreign entity, a public safety crisis develops, one that requires an increase in domestic and friend-shored manufacturing to address.
The United States should never be dependent on the Chinese Communist Party for antibiotics and essential medicines; Republicans and Democrats alike agree on this concept. But that’s exactly the dangerous position we are in today, due to rampant outsourcing by pharmaceutical companies.
In 2002, the United States manufactured 72 percent of the pharmaceuticals it consumed. By 2023, that number had dropped to just 37.5 percent. We didn’t just outsource manufacturing — we outsourced the sovereignty and safety of our health care system. We traded our national security for a horse-shoe nail.
The United States should never be dependent on the Chinese Communist Party for antibiotics and essential medicines. But that’s exactly the dangerous position we are in today.
China is not our friend. Every product component that then turns into a vial of medicine or a piece of medical equipment that is made in China is a missed opportunity to strengthen our economy and protect our people. We need to view pharmaceutical and health care supply chain independence just as we are viewing energy independence.
We saw the impact of this dependence on China firsthand during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to a conversation I had with the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response, or ASPR, under the Trump Administration, the United States saw a downtick in the amount of personal protective equipment and pharmaceuticals coming to our country from China in the fall of 2019. We didn’t learn about COVID-19 until January 2020. China knew there was an unidentified sickness in its own country, concealed it, and then withheld medical supplies so the United States was less prepared when COVID-19 hit our shores.
As both a pharmacist and a member of Congress, I find this to be deeply concerning, and it is a situation we could find ourselves in again if we fail to take decisive action now. Under the Biden-Harris Administration, over 323 drugs were in shortage during the first quarter of 2024 – an all-time high – and cancer patients were often forced to switch treatments, adjust dosage regimens, or, in extreme cases, unable to receive their lifesaving medications. This is unacceptable in the United States of America. There was no comprehensive effort to support American manufacturers or reduce our reliance on foreign supply chains, even after the lessons supposedly learned during the pandemic. We can’t afford to learn this lesson the hard way twice.
In 2002, the United States manufactured 72 percent of the pharmaceuticals it consumed. By 2023, that number had dropped to just 37.5 percent.
Thankfully, President Trump is working around the clock to bring powerful investments to the United States that will unlock pharmaceutical dominance and bring an end to the poor policies that created the crisis we find ourselves in today, which harms patients most of all.
Under the leadership of President Trump, we are bringing pharmaceutical manufacturing back to America. In just a few short months of his second term, Johnson & Johnson broke ground on a new $2 billion facility in North Carolina, Eli Lilly announced $27 billion in new U.S. manufacturing, Amgen announced a $900 million manufacturing expansion in Ohio, AbbVie committed $10 billion to invest in the United States, and Sanofi announced plans to invest at least $20 billion. These are just a few examples. This is just the start of an era of dominance.
My home state is showing up and doing its part as well. It is no coincidence that Georgia – the No. 1 state in the nation in which to do business – is home to Manus Bio, which has invested nearly $60 million and created over 100 jobs with the acquisition of a new manufacturing facility in Augusta. We need more policies at the federal level that mirror the pro-growth ones we have in the state of Georgia, including low taxes and a high-quality workforce.
To make the rest of the nation look more like Georgia, House Republicans passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which incentivizes domestic medical supply production by rewarding companies that build their products in America, like USAntibiotics, which is the last remaining end-to-end domestic U.S. manufacturer of amoxicillin, the most prescribed antibiotic in the country. With this bill, we are not only saving American lives, but we are also strengthening our economy, unleashing manufacturing dominance, and bringing hope to patients nationwide.
I am proud to stand with President Trump and all those committed to putting America First in our health care system — starting with the medicines we rely on every day.
Buddy Carter represents the 1st District of Georgia in the U.S. House of Representatives.