'Wake-up call': Chinese control
of U.S. pharmaceutical supplies
sparks growing concern

Great. Now people will start hoarding their medicines.

considering the extreme efficiency of modern industrial processes how is it possible for China to produce these basic ingredients for a 35 to 40% less than producers in the West. They do not make use of much manpower. I think the answer is that they are selling at prices less than the cost of production in order to control the market.

FTA: "The Trump administration and lawmakers from both parties are now calling for a dramatic revamping of domestic U.S. drug manufacturing operations..." Okay, let's nationalize the drug manufacturing business. Nothing like central planning and execution authority. Better think hard about how this is done. I'm hardly less concerned about having our own government in control than the Chinese.

Isn't this in part the fault of John Edwards and his ilk? I'm thinking he made his fortune suing American Pharmaceutical companies and driving them out of the U.S.

People my age are already hording their medicines. That is because of being on Medicare and the CMS doesn't give a rabid rat's ass whether we live or die, as long as illegals and foreigners and elites get theirs. Also, this is no idle threat by China.

This cuts both ways. No demand for their drugs means Chinese out of work and mass starvation.

This will be one of the good things to come out of this mess. China will be treated as the pariah state, like a murderous Communist dictatorship deserves to be treated. Companies need to disentangle themselves from China as soon as is possible. Bring back those jobs to the USA.

#2, and also there are huge "taxes" applied to all US chemical production in the form of EPA regulations, many which are far more expensive to do than is actually necessary, just because the EPA is insane and doesn't care if it massively increases industrial costs for no gain. An example, from powerplant applications is the cooling water. A friend retired as a central power plant engineer a few years ago, I learned of EPA insanity that was costing his company a lot....passed on in electric bills. To condense the steam after it has gone through the turbines, so the very clean water inside the system can be reused again in the boilers, they need outside cooling water. This is typically river water which runs into huge heat exchangers, picks up a few degrees of heat from the condensing steam (never mixing, the steam is inside tubes, river water outside tubes). The EPA required the water exiting the condensers to meet EPA drinking water standards before it could be returned to the river. It didn't meet EPA drinking water standards when it went in, and the condensers did NOTHING to the water except warm it slightly, yet they had to had what is essentially a drinking water plant to treat all the water that exited the condensers before they could put it back in the river. INSANITY. Why not just put it back, unmolested except slightly warmer? Because the EPA "says so".....end of discussion. Does this expenditure of money make the environment cleaner? Well, within 50 yards of the pipe returning the water to the river, it is mixed in and pretty much identical to all the rest of the river water, so, no, it is just wasted money. This sort of insanity is EVERYWHERE that the EPA puts it's fingers, and they do NOT care what the costs might be. So, it is cheaper to make a LOT of products overseas, out of the evil clutches of the EPA.

Under whose administration were the drug companies moved over to China? Just curious. I tried to google it, but just could not come up with anything. I found out awhile back, by listening to Glenn Beck's radio program, that most of our antibiotics were made in China. This was awhile before coronovirus hit. I would bet President Trump would never let that happen, and not because he is a wealthy and does not have that sell-out mentality; just because he has common sense and he loves his country more than the "almighty" dollar.

And about time. But not as easily to correct as it would seem. First and foremost, pharmaceutical companies have to be encouraged to start producing, which means plowing massive resources into said production, plus overcoming the massive regulations they face on everything, and they must also be allowed to make a profit, which means drug prices would go up. In the meanwhile, we are held hostage by China, India and whomever, but mostly China....and they know it. Where in the world were our last four (at least) presidents, allowing this to happen.

Please, let's not upset LeBron.

Can we also thank the Bushies and their New World Order? Both worked diligently to move as much manufacturing as possible out of the US and presumably to China who waited with open arms. Also, Senator Mitch McConnell's wife, Elaine Chao, Secretary of Transportation, is a huge supporter of China. Her father owns a shipping huge shipping company that does business with only China. Now there's a troubling connection...yes?

#10 - "...drug prices would go up..." Yipes, i have a friend who told me she gets s pain shot for her back or something, and the shot costs $2,000 a shot. Is that the excuse they will use for moving the plants to China? To save money. We all know that is not true. Of course, we just pay a co-pay and Harvard Pilgrim or Tufts is charged, or whatever. But who pays Harvard Pilgrim? We do. I had an MRI of my leg below the knee, and the doctor told me that i have arthritis in my knee. BUT IT WASN'T THE KNEE THAT WAS FILMED! And I have no pain in my knee. And the MRI cost six thousand dollars! I think at the most it took forty minutes. (maybe they are still paying for the machine - that is as good an excuse as any) The medical industry is corrupt too.

#3, where did it say they want to nationalize drug manufacturing? They just want drugs to be produced here in this country so as not to have to rely on China or any other country. Who wants to be held medical hostage to China or any other state?

What has President Trump been saying about bringing lost US manufacturing capacity and lost American manufacturing jobs back to America ever since he announced that he was running for President? In contrast Joseph Biden has been publicly claiming on the Democrat stump that China is no competitor or threat to the USA and that Trump should not be messing with the prior globalist trade agreements and concessions that he, while he was in the US Senate for decades and as Obama's Vice-President for eight years approved, that benefited China and as now been shown to be adverse and very dangerous to America. On top of that Biden as publicly supported all along the insane leftist and liberal Democrat "Open borders" political agenda that this corona virus pandemic has outed as being very dangerous to the health and welfare of all Americans. That was clearly illustrated when Trump immediately shut down all travel by foreign nationals from China to the USA, many of who could easily been carrying the corona virus.While the Chinese Communist Government there was secreted the virus from the world. Biden's response to that travel ban was to call Trump's travel ban racist and xenophobic.

Is China using slave labor to produce items to place in our markets and displace American workers??

#14 - When the government "revamps" a private business stream it is "nationalizing". What else is it? Now, on the flimsiest of excuses, our "wartime" President invokes the 1950 Defense Production Act to force companies to prioritize and expedite their provision of supplies and resources to support NATIONAL DEFENSE, now apparently defined as public health speculation. This is well beyond the Act's intent, and another deal that will pay the profiteers handsomely no matter what actually happens. Chalk it up to politics. And that includes our President.

This is a National Security issue...time to do business with India?

#18 We already do business with India. Today in a call from Sen Scott, he said we have a problem with getting test kits because the swabs are made in Italy. We haven't been a self sustaining country since what NAFTA ? We can't even feed ourselves anymore. Is that hot commodity toilet tissue made in China?