15 May 2018 - If New Zealand was showing any interest in a bilateral trade agreement with the United States, it would be time to worry about Donald Trump's latest utterance on pharmaceutical exports.

"When foreign governments extort unreasonably low prices from US drug makers," he said, "Americans have to pay more to subsidise the enormous cost of research and development." Fixing this "injustice" would be a "top priority with every trading partner".

But the only way that this could threaten PHARMAC, New Zealand's public funder of prescription medicine, would be if Trump seriously wanted to negotiate a US return to the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement. While he sometimes sounds open to rejoining the TPP it would be on his terms and he is probably not capable of making the concessions required for a multilateral trade deal.

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