The Trump administration just inked deals with nine more pharmaceutical companies that agreed to offer Medicaid the same low prices that foreign countries pay. In exchange, President Donald Trump promised to spare these manufacturers from tariffs. So far, the president has struck these voluntary agreements with 26 drugmakers in total.
Page F3From§Eachthe coffee break edition — 2 October 2026
Former House Republican leader takes over drug lobby in time for 26 deals whose terms stay secret
As it ran on the front
You will want the waiting period. There is none to want. PhRMA made Eric Cantor, lately the Republican leader of the House, its chief executive officer on Tuesday, and no statute stood in the doorway. Congress wrote none. The Federalist called it "the swampiest move ever," and a judgment stops nobody at a door.
What he inherits is handsome. Twenty-six drugmakers have signed with the administration, nine this week, promising Medicaid the low prices foreign countries pay. And what did they get for it? Tariffs, spared — the consideration ... the thing handed back to make a bargain a bargain.…
…(cont) Public Citizen obtained the documents on September 20: perks never disclosed, savings narrowed, the companies free to raise prices overseas. The win is touted loudly, the terms not at all. On September 24 Senator Sanders asked the nominee to lead the Food and Drug Administration whether the President was telling the truth.
Nobody has shown you the paper.
Keys to the henhouse, the fox holds. The hens are not told yet.
“There is no cooling-off law because the men who would have to write it are the ones applying for the job. Twenty-six drug companies hand Medicaid a discount, pocket protection from tariffs, and keep a free hand to charge other countries more — and we only know that because Public Citizen had to file a records request to pry the paperwork loose. The price of your prescription is sitting in a document you are not allowed to read, and the lobby's new boss started with a clean legal slate on day one.”
“These are voluntary agreements. Voluntary — nobody held a gun to anyone, and the President said at the State of the Union that Americans get the cheapest medications in the world. Did I say cheapest? What I said was foreign prices, which is different, and frankly better. And look, the Cantor hire is entirely legal; if there is no law against it, I am not sure what we are even discussing.”
Earlier in this story
- Drug lobby hires former House Republican leader as chief executive; the law required zero days of waiting By Sterling · the breakfast edition, 2 October 2026
The receipts
· 'Is the President Telling the Truth?' Sanders Corners Trump FDA Nominee on His Bogus Drug Price Claims from the morgue, 24 Sep 2026
· Secret Trump Drug Deals Reveal Perks for Big Pharma, Uncertainty for Patients from the morgue, 20 Sep 2026
· Trump, Who Calls Medicare for All Too Expensive, Vows $5,000 to Every US Adult—If GOP Wins Midterms from the morgue, 10 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.