Most Americans are not aware of how dependent the United States is on China for its medical equipment and pharmaceutical supply chain, Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wisc., who has teamed up with Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., on legislation to protect the supply chain, told Newsmax TV Monday.
"Most of our APIs, our active pharmaceutical ingredients, come from China, including 95% of our ibuprofen, (and) 40% of penicillin," the Wisconsin Republican said on Newsmax TV's "The Chris Salcedo Show." "Now we're in a situation where you have Chinese Communist Party officials threatening to cut off exports of key drug subcomponents and plunge the United States into a 'sea of coronavirus."
The bill will require companies to report whether active pharmaceutical ingredients are made in China, and will prevent the Veterans' Administration, the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, from buying drugs from China, said Gallagher.
"This won't happen overnight," he added. "There will be costs associated with it. But the cost of inaction, the cost of remaining dependent on China is too great for us.
Gallager said he would not classify China as either a friend or an enemy, but as a "strategic competitor."
"It is my view that under the leadership of General Secretary Xi Jinping, China has become an increasingly aggressive power," he said. "The vision of the Chinese Communist Party under General Secretary Xi is incompatible with our vision, and those of our closest allies particularly the region whether it's Japan or Australia...we are in a competition with China. That will be the defining struggle of at least the next decade, if not longer."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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