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President Donald Trump has long been one of Europe's toughest critics – which makes it ironic that he is now planning to copy one of the continent's worst policies.

The president has called for most-favored-nation drug pricing in the United States. His vision, as expressed in a May executive order – and reaffirmed last month in a prime-time address on the economy – is to force drug companies to sell their medicines to Americans at the lowest price they offer in any other developed country. Consider a drug whose list price is $100 in the United States but $60 in Germany. The president sees most-favored-nation pricing as a way to bring that lower German price stateside.

But this is not cause for celebration. Take it from someone born and raised in Spain: Europe's system of drug price controls comes with serious problems, including reduced innovation and access to new medicines. Importing price controls would be one of the biggest policy mistakes the U.S. government could make.

Trump isn't the first U.S. leader to support price controls on drugs (nor is this his first go-around trying to do so). In fact, capping drug prices is a policy where leaders of both parties have found common ground. In 2022, President Joe Biden's Inflation Reduction Act gave the federal government the power to set prices for certain drugs, such as insulin purchased by Medicare.

Both Trump's plan and Biden's Medicare "price negotiations" were reactions to a real problem. It's clear that many American patients struggle to afford their treatments. According to nonprofit health researcher KFF, nearly 1 in 3 adults have skipped or rationed medication because of cost, and more than half worry about affording their family's prescriptions.

Phyllis ArthurDec. 19, 2025

But price controls aren't the answer to this problem. Having lived my entire life in Spain – whose government routinely employs price controls to tamp down the prices of........

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