Wisconsin Republican Rep. Mike Gallagher said on Hill TV’s “Rising” Tuesday morning that the U.S. must work to become independent from China, not relying on the country for critical supplies like pharmaceuticals.
He noted that a significant percentage of active ingredients in over-the-counter drugs such as ibuprofen and antibiotics such as penicillin are imported from China.
“As we’ve seen throughout the coronavirus crisis, this was a huge mistake, it creates a dangerous dependency,” he said. “And when you have Chinese communist party officials threatening to cut off exports and plunging the united states into an ocean of coronavirus… I think we need to look at how we reduce that vulnerability so we don’t find ourselves in a similar situation.”
Gallagher and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) introduced a bill earlier this month that seeks to limit U.S. imports from China.
He said the bill seeks to “require the FDA to track API and to tell us if indeed there is a dependency on a foreign country” and prohibit government purchases from China for certain medical resources.
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