A supply chain is only as strong as its weakest link. In America’s supply-chain network, a particularly dangerous weak point is our dependence on an adversary for medications. Once a world leader in pharmaceutical manufacturing, the US now relies heavily on drugs from overseas, increasingly from China. But that won’t be an option much longer. As President Trump weighs tariffs on pharmaceuticals and China turns the screws with export controls, the carefree days of dependence on imports are over. The U.S. must boost domestic drug production before China snaps the link.
In the past decade, the number of US factories producing active pharmaceutical ingredients has fallen by more than 60%, largely because of state-subsidized foreign competition. The number of Chinese active pharmaceutical ingredient factories, meanwhile, has grown by about 55% over the same period. While America was sleeping, China was building.