President Donald Trump said he would sign an executive order to lower the prices of prescription drugs and pharmaceutical products.

“Prescription Drug and Pharmaceutical prices will be reduced, almost immediately, by 30 per cent to 80 per cent,” Mr Trump said in a social media post. “They will rise throughout the world in order to equalise and, for the first time in many years, bring fairness to America.”

The U.S. president said he would sign the executive order, which he said would be one of the most consequential in U.S. history, at 9:00 a.m. (1300 GMT) on Monday.

Earlier in the week, Mr Trump had promised an “earth-shattering” announcement.

U.S. media at the time reported the announcement would relate to drug prices.

In the U.S., there is currently no central government price regulation for drugs applying to all medicines.

The pharmaceutical industry plays the most important role in determining how much a drug costs, and government influence is limited.

This leads to sometimes enormously high prices for certain drugs.

Many drugs in the U.S. are particularly expensive compared to other countries.

It was not initially clear how Mr Trump’s order would work, with a pushback expected by pharmaceutical companies.

Mr Trump had attempted to lower drug prices during his first term in office.

The plan at the time was to provide drugs, including insulin and EpiPens, at discounts to people with low incomes, and use lower international prices to pay for some drugs provided under the Medicare state insurance programme for older adults.

The proposal was never implemented due to legal and political opposition.

Mr Trump’s Sunday post said this time he would try to bring down prices by “instituting a most favoured nation’s policy whereby U.S. will pay the same price as the nation that pays the lowest price in the world.”

The American president suggested that the Democrats fought against bringing down prices.

In fact, drug regulation was one of the central issues of Mr Trump’s predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden.

In 2022, Mr Biden signed a major legislative package that also authorised Medicare to negotiate certain drug prices.

Mr Biden’s measure was considered a milestone.

(dpa/NAN)