The pandemic should’ve been a wake-up call. At one point, the Chinese government threatened to withhold pharmaceuticals from the U.S. that included the major statins such as blood pressure and cholesterol medicines that have kept millions of Americans alive beyond their average lifespan just decades ago.
It was clear that these foreign adversaries were willing to entertain the thought of holding these pharmaceuticals over our heads as leverage. And now we’re seeing they’re doing the same thing with rare earth minerals that keep our computers, cars, and even our weaponry working.
A fourth grader could have understood back in 2020 that the U.S. had to engage in a Manhattan Project-style effort to wean ourselves off this foreign dependency, especially from China.
But what have we done? Practically nothing.
This is a shocking and enormous abdication of the responsibility that should be borne by all of our leaders from both sides of the aisle. We’ve had five years to start weaning ourselves off these foreign products.
President Trump has been rightly injecting this matter into the tariff conversation, but we need more than that as it pertains to pharmaceuticals and raw minerals. Our government must get directly involved, even if it means subsidizing private U.S. companies or producing these products from the government itself.
This is something that is anathema to the capitalist system, but this is a very unique exception where American national security is at stake.
Where is the bill that forces this to happen?
We still may have time to wean ourselves off this foreign dependence, but the clock is ticking. Stop with the negotiations already and start developing these products on American soil.