Trump Will Make Europe (Especially Germany) Grateful Again
The following content is sponsored by Americans for Limited Government.
80 years ago, the United States saved Europe from itself in World War II. Following this, we rebuilt Western Europe with the Marshall Plan and protected it from the Soviets. This kind of generosity characterizes the American spirit and our positive impact on the world. In war, generosity to your allies is important. But at this point, the better word than “allies” to describe Western Europe’s relationship with us would be “sponges.”
It has long been known that America subsidizes the health care of the rest of the developed world. Although America represents less than five percent of the world’s population, we supply about two-thirds of new drugs.
Americans are paying the bill for new drugs. European governments don’t do this: first, they don’t fund research like we do; and second, they operate single-payer health systems. This means that they simply tell pharmaceutical companies how much they will pay for specific drugs. The reason it costs us so much is that no one in Europe pays their fair share. (This way it’s like NATO!)
President Trump has successfully reduced drug prices. It has partnered with drugmakers to offer lower prices than in Europe through TrumpRx. He negotiated with the United Kingdom. The British decided to play along by signing a deal to increase the net price of new drugs in the UK in exchange for tariff relief. (Yes, tariffs can help encourage positive behavior.) However, other European socialist sponges really don’t like it. They want to continue to let the American taxpayer pay too much so they can pay less for drugs.
Public enemy number one here is Germany. For decades, Berlin bureaucrats imposed mandatory price cuts on drugs developed in the United States as soon as they arrived in Germany. They do this while bragging about how good their health care system is compared to ours – their health care system that only exists because of American generosity (by paying their military bills) and American innovation (by creating drugs they could never have had).
Berlin has released a new bill aimed at limiting costs, which creates even more rebates and price reductions to further exploit this system. European Union Commissioner Ursula von der Leyen rails against socialism, but then turns around and imposes the price controls that depend on it.
The Trump administration has announced plans to launch a Section 301 investigation into countries that impose “unreasonable or discriminatory” burdens on the American taxpayer. Germany and other European countries are expected to be at the top of the list. The president announced on Truth Social that if the EU does not play along, he will increase tariffs on these products by 25 percent. We’ve been nice for 80 years, it’s time for them to be nice again. The release of the Section 301 investigation is the next step toward establishing more fairness.
Germany is the largest economy in Europe and the third largest economy in the world. She could afford to pay her fair share (for once). Yet instead, Germany is lecturing the rest of Europe about “solidarity” and “unity”. What Germany could not accomplish 80 years ago with tanks, it does today with mandates and economic bullying. Indeed, the anthem of the European Union on “all men become brothers” is in German! Enough is enough. Thanks to the current Section 301 investigation into the European Union and the risk of additional tariffs, President Trump is right to hold these sponges accountable for defrauding American patients.
