Cheap pharmaceuticals from China and India put Americans at risk. Here’s the cure.

Lobbyists in Washington are at it again. They’re warning of calamity if the Trump administration imposes Section 232 tariffs on imports of prescription generic drugs. They tell us that consumers will face higher prices. But the scare stories don’t hold up — especially for the generics that make up 90% of U.S. prescriptions.

The problem America faces is that U.S. patients are now dangerously dependent on foreign suppliers. China controls up to 90% of the global supply of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) — the chemical building blocks of modern drugs. And India produces roughly half of America’s generic medicines.