Trump signs executive orders on pharmaceuticals, space industry

President Trump signed a trio of executive orders Wednesday night. The orders focused on strengthening America’s pharmaceutical supply chain resilience, enabling competition in the space industry, and revoking a Biden-era economic order, according to the White House.

What did the president order regarding the pharmaceutical industry? Trump signed an executive order to restock the United States’ reserve of critical drug ingredients. The order required the Department of Health and Human Services to develop a list of more than two dozen drugs critical to the nation’s health and security while updating a separate list of medicines classified as essential. The order required the department to ensure that the nation’s reserve maintains a stock of ingredients sufficient to make a six-month supply of each of the drugs on the critical and essential lists.

What about the space industry? The White House said the executive order would facilitate competition in the space industry through regulatory reform. It directed administration officials to review federal regulations to ensure they are not overly restrictive for space travel. Environmental reviews for licensing space vehicles are to be expedited and outdated or redundant regulations eliminated. The order also established a dedicated position under the Department of Transportation to oversee the deregulation of the space industry.

What Biden-era order did Trump revoke? Trump issued his own executive order revoking a previous executive order former President Joe Biden signed. The 2021 order, titled “Promoting Competition in the American Economy,” included more than 70 directives the Biden administration said would increase competition in the U.S. economy and combat the concentrated power held by large corporations. Some of those directives included the banning or limiting of so-called non-compete agreements and requiring airlines to disclose add-on fees upfront.

Dig deeper: Listen to Karen Holt, professor of political science at Virginia Tech, discuss Trump’s recent executive orders on The World and Everything in It.