President Trump and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin Announce Reversal of Green Energy Climate Mandates


Posted originally on CTH on February 12, 2026 | Sundance 

The Obama-Biden administration couldn’t get the votes needed in Congress to amend the Clean Air Act and regulate “greenhouse gases.” So, they both decided to ignore the law and create trillions in regulatory costs on the American people.

As noted by EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, “The Trump Admin is proudly following the law, saving $1.3 TRILLION for the American people, lowering new car costs by over $2,400 per vehicle, and getting rid of the climate participation trophy for manufacturers to install Obama Switches that shut vehicles off at red lights and stop signs.” WATCH:

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Media questions begin at 19:31.

Steve Bannon Text Messages About Trump Included in the Epstein File Release


Posted originally on CTH on February 10, 2026 | Sundance

Apparently, Steve Bannon and Jeffrey Epstein had a considerable relationship together.  Bannon is cited frequently in the 3 million+ Epstein files that were released by the DOJ.

Unfortunately, part of the document production includes text messages between Steve Bannon and an unknown individual.  Within a segment of the text messages Bannon calls Jared Kusher “the idiot son-in-law,” and frames himself as more important that President Donald Trump who Bannon sees as “transitory.”

[DOJ Source File]

STEVE BANNON (SB) – “To do that shows that [Trump] is center of gravity of this movement and not me — will never do — they are transitory figures — the dc game is to succumb to that — it’s why I never did before joining campaign — I could have been the trump whisperer years ago — avoided on purpose”

This rather elevated sense of self-importance likely explains why Bannon was the source for Michael Wolf via leaks, and why President Trump seems to have kept distance from Mr. Bannon.  However, people who walk the deep weeds of U.S. politics will also remember when Steve Bannon was the editor of Breitbart and together with financial owner Robert Mercer in 2015/2016 was backing Ted Cruz in the run-up to the 2016 election.

Both Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway were original political consultants and financial beneficiaries connected to the failed Ted Cruz presidential effort, before they abandoned the Cruz Crew and jumped aboard the MAGA movement.

The Cruz Crew has essentially morphed into the Ron DeSantis coalition and this superiority attitude expressed by Bannon is one of the key characteristics of the group we affectionately call the “alligator emojis.”

Perhaps the best two words to describe the brilliant political strategies of Steve Bannon are ‘Roy – Moore’.

I digress.

Trust your instincts folks, and always remember…. It’s ALWAYS about the money!

President Trump Threatens Blockade of Almost Completed Michigan-Ontario Bridge


Posted originally on CTH on February 9, 2026 | Sundance 

Writing on a Truth Social post earlier this evening, President Trump is threatening to block the U.S. side of a new bridge that links Detroit, Michigan to Ontario, Canada:

(Truth Social) – “As everyone knows, the Country of Canada has treated the United States very unfairly for decades. Now, things are turning around for the U.S.A., and FAST! But imagine, Canada is building a massive bridge between Ontario and Michigan. They own both the Canada and the United States side and, of course, built it with virtually no U.S. content. President Barack Hussein Obama stupidly gave them a waiver so they could get around the BUY AMERICAN Act, and not use any American products, including our Steel.

Now, the Canadian Government expects me, as President of the United States, to PERMIT them to just “take advantage of America!” What does the United States of America get — Absolutely NOTHING! Ontario won’t even put U.S. spirits, beverages, and other alcoholic products, on their shelves, they are absolutely prohibited from doing so and now, on top of everything else, Prime Minister Carney wants to make a deal with China — which will eat Canada alive. We’ll just get the leftovers! I don’t think so.

The first thing China will do is terminate ALL Ice Hockey being played in Canada and permanently eliminate The Stanley Cup. The Tariffs Canada charges us for our Dairy products have, for many years, been unacceptable, putting our Farmers at great financial risk. I will not allow this bridge to open until the United States is fully compensated for everything we have given them, and also, importantly, Canada treats the United States with the Fairness and Respect that we deserve. We will start negotiations, IMMEDIATELY. With all that we have given them, we should own, perhaps, at least one half of this asset. The revenues generated because of the U.S. Market will be astronomical. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” ~PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP

The USMCA renegotiation plan likely plays a big part in this announcement.  Don’t react, just watch.

NSA “Whistleblower” Attorney Andrew Bakaj Appears on Video Making False Claim About “Underlying Intercept”


Posted originally on CTH on February 9, 2026 

Allison Gill is an ally of the Lawfare network and recently sat down for an interview with NSA whistleblower attorney Andrew Bakaj; the same attorney used by former CIA whistleblower Eric Ciaramella.

This interview appears to be taking place after Bakaj revised his statements to The Guardian forcing them to rewrite the central claim of the leak he provided. The Guardian rewrote their article removing the key claim within the intelligence intercept that a foreign intelligence person was in contact with a person close to President Donald Trump.

The revision now states:

[…] “The Guardian reported earlier on Saturday that the phone conversation was between a person associated with foreign intelligence and a person close to Trump, based on Bakaj’s recollection of the complaint, which he confirmed over multiple calls. However, after publication, Bakaj said he misspoke.

He clarified his understanding of the complaint in a statement: “The NSA picked up a phone call between two members of foreign intelligence involving someone close to the Trump White House,” he said. “The NSA does not monitor individuals without a reason.” {citation}

This is not a small “revision,” it is essentially a rewrite of the central component to the whistleblower complaint.  As it is now clarified two foreign people were intercepted talking about a person who knows Donald Trump.  This could be any two foreign people gossiping or talking about anyone who is in the orbit of Donald Trump.  That explains why intelligence analysts reviewed the NSA intercept, disregarded it and said it is hearsay likely just ‘gossip” according to New York Times reporting.

However, that said, Andrew Bakaj then appears on a podcast with Allison Gill during their effort to put traction to the claims, and Bakaj repeats the false statement.  See video at 7:45:

…”So, in the spring of last year there was intelligence that was gathered by an agency that captured, um, activity that was being conducted by someone close to the President.”…

This is the same lie the whistleblower’s attorney Andrew Bakaj told The Guardian; that someone close to the president was a participant in the “activity.” This is demonstrably false through all other reporting.

The complaint alleges two foreign individuals were intercepted talking to each other about a person who Bakaj defines as close to the president, on the subject of Iran.

It could simply be two Germans or Israelis talking about Iran and wondering what Devin Nunes thinks about it.

The entire predicate claim is silly. Foreign officials and foreign intelligence officials talk to each other all the time about Trump and or his people.

This complaint is a fabrication, and the fact that the NSA Whistleblower included the TSSCI material in the complaint, literally outlining who was intercepted talking, is the reason why the complaint could not be shared or circulated without careful guidance by the DNI.

The whistleblower did this on purpose. If the whistleblower wanted to share his complaint with more people, he could have just avoided including the TSSCI aspect.

This is intelligence community Lawfare in action.

Sunday Talks – Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent Discusses Trump Economic Plan and Growth Forecast


Posted originally on CTH on February 8, 2026 | Sundance

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent appears on Fox News to discuss the current state of the U.S. economy as contrast against current growth plans and economic policy.  As noted by Bessent, the future of the Main Street economy generally lags behind the forecast of the Wall Street economy.  All of the domestic investment is currently building out the capacities of the underlying economy to expand.

Additionally, Bessent notes the importance of the cumulative effect of strategic energy policy, the assembly of a critical mineral reserve and the mounting growth in the industrial manufacturing center.  MAGAnomics is creating expanded domestic growth by reshoring many of the industrial jobs due to tariff policy.  Overall, the interview gives a big picture perspective on the short- and long-term economic program. WATCH:

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President Trump Superbowl Day Interview – Full Video

February 8, 2026 | Sundance | 65 Comments

In what has become an annual tradition, here’s the full Superbowl Day interview with NBC News’ Tom Llamas and President Donald Trump.

President Trump addresses the ongoing immigration enforcement, the state of the American economy, U.S. tensions with Iran and other topics from the oval office in the White House. The interview was conducted on Wednesday, February 4 and broadcast today. The interview is an hour long. ENJOY:

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Sunday Talks – Senate Intel Vice-Chairman Mark Warner Apoplectic About DNI Tulsi Gabbard Election Review


Posted originally on CTH on February 8, 2026 | Sundance 

Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Vice-Chairman, Mark Warner, a man of exceptionally dubious intelligence, appears on Face the Nation for a pre-scripted interview with CBS’s Margaret Brennan.  The video and transcript are below.

From his position on the SSCI, Senator Warner was one of the key players in the deployment of the Intelligence Community against President Trump’s first term in office, including his background conversations with Chris Steele and his leaking of the Carter Page FISA warrant to promote the Trump-Russia conspiracy claim and stimulate the appointment of a DOJ special counsel.

Within President Trump’s second term in office, Warner’s primary concern is having a Director of National Intelligence (DNI) who doesn’t conform to the goals and objectives of the Fourth Branch of government, the intelligence apparatus.  In reality, DNI Tulsi Gabbard appears to be methodically taking apart the intelligence community weaponization system.  This, when combined with Gabbard’s review of election integrity issues, has triggered the deep concern of Warner, one of the IC’s primary enablers. WATCH:

[Transcript] – MARGARET BRENNAN: Good morning and welcome to ‘Face the Nation.’ We begin this morning with the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Virginia’s Mark Warner. Good to have you here.

SEN. MARK WARNER: Thank you, Margaret.

MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to talk about elections and security. Back on January 28, the FBI went to Fulton County, Georgia and seized ballots and 2020 voting records linked to the presidential election. The Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, then was spotted outside the elections office, and she argued that her presence there had been personally requested by the president of the United States, and she had broad statutory authority to coordinate, integrate and analyze intelligence related to election security. What would justify her involvement? Is there any foreign nexus that you have been informed of?

SEN. WARNER: We have not been informed of any foreign nexus. The job of the director of national intelligence is to be outward facing about foreigners, not about Americans, and remember, many of the reforms that were put in place actually took place after the Watergate scandal under President Nixon, where a president was directly involved in certain domestic criminal activities and appeared with the Watergate break-in. And my fear in this case is it almost seems Nixonian. If the president asked Gabbard to show up down in Georgia on a domestic political investigation- first of all, how would he know about the search warrant even being issued? That’s not his job. And then to have the irector of national intelligence down there, which is totally against her rules, unless there is a foreign nexus, and she has not indicated any foreign nexus to us to date.

MARGARET BRENNAN: There’s been no communication with the committee whatsoever on this issue?

SEN. WARNER: We have asked. We then subsequently found that this was not the first time she was involved in domestic activities. She went down and seized some voting machines in Puerto Rico earlier in the year. Again, we had no knowledge of that. And then the question of what she was doing in Georgia. There’s been three or four different stories since it broke. First, she said the president asked, then the president said he didn’t ask her. Then he said it was Pam Bondi, the attorney general. So we don’t have the slightest idea other than the fact that the whole thing stinks to high heaven, and the fact is, Donald Trump cannot get over the fact that he lost Georgia in 2020 that he lost the election in 2020. My fear is now he sees the political winds turning against him, and he’s going to try to interfere in the 2026 election, something a year ago I didn’t think would be possible.

MARGARET BRENNAN: That’s a tremendous statement. But just to clarify here, it was Reuters that first reported that Gabbard went to Puerto Rico back in the spring to seize voting machines. Was Congress informed at all? Did you learn about it in the press?

SEN. WARNER: I believe the first we ever heard about this was from the press itself.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Wow. So the- you’ve laid out that the intelligence agencies usually focus overseas, but the White House is arguing that the director was there for good reason, and that federal law, they argue, assigns a DNI statutory responsibility to lead counter intelligence matters related to election security, election voting system risk, software, voter registration databases. You’re concerned, but are your fellow Republicans on the committee concerned?

SEN. WARNER: Here’s the ironic thing, Margaret, many of the protections for our election system were put in place during the first Trump administration. We set up CISA, the cybersecurity agency, to help work with state and local elections. There was an FBI center set up for foreign malign influence, foreign influence. And then we put into law something called the Foreign Malign Influence Center at the Director of National Intelligence office. All of those entities have been basically disbanded. CISA cut by a third. The FBI center cut back. The ODNI center cut back, which we think is, frankly, counter to the law. But it all- in terms the ODNI has to be involved, of foreign involvement, there has been no evidence of that to date.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Where is Chair Cotton on this, though?

SEN. WARNER: We have jointly been making sure that we get updates on election security, and I think we see more of that to come, because this is critical. And my concern is that when we see artificial intelligence tools and others- it was almost child’s play. What happened in 2016 China, Russia, Iran others could be interfering. We’ve not seen evidence to date. Gabbard, if she’s got any evidence, should have provided it to the Congress. I think this was an effort where Donald Trump can’t get over the fact that he lost Georgia so obsessed. And it begs the question is, what was Gabbard doing there? And it frankly, begs the question is- question is, why was the president even aware of this investigation before the search warrant was issued?

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, we would, we would love to put those questions to the director, and have asked to do so. But now that you are here, can you just button this up for me? Because we’re talking about 2020, and that’s what Fulton County. The focus was about but you also said, you think in 2026 there’s an effort to interfere. What evidence do you have of that?

SEN. WARNER: This was what I’m seeing from the president’s own comments about nationalizing elections and putting Republicans in charge, counter to the constitution. We’ve seen these activities in Georgia, where could there be some effort that suddenly gives him an excuse to try to take some of these federalization efforts we’ve seen ICE. We focused a lot of this activity on ICE in terms of they’re going rogue in Minneapolis. But there is a very real threat, without reforms at ICE, that you could have ICE patrols around polling stations, and people would say, “well, why would that matter?” If they’re all American citizens–

MARGARET BRENNAN: –Noncitizens cannot vote.

SEN. WARNER: –Because we’ve seen ice discriminate against Latinos families. We’ve seen as well mixed families where someone may be legal and others not. And candidly, you don’t need to do a lot to discourage people from voting, and we’ve more recently seen ICE starting to use technology where they can get information about Americans. Recently, there was an individual in Minnesota that got denied a global entry card to get through TSA quicker because he or she appeared at a protest rally. Do we really want ICE having that information?–

MARGARET BRENNAN: Is that what DHS said?

SEN. WARNER: Hypothetically- that was what happened in Minnesota. Hypothetically, if ICE is getting information, and you’ve got an unpaid parking ticket, would you go vote if you’ve got an unpaid parking ticket, thinking that an ICE patrol might be at a polling station, this is uncharted territory, and yet you’ve got the president’s own words, in many ways, raising concerns, because he says, well, gosh, we Republicans ought to take over elections in 15 states.

MARGARET BRENNAN: We’re going to talk about some of that and the operations at the local level with David Becker, our elections expert ahead in the show, and the immigration reform. But I want to ask you about what’s going on with Director Gabbard, because there was a whistleblower who filed a complaint against her personally and offered to come to Congress to share the information. According to the attorney for this whistleblower, this is about a complaint that two inspectors general, one of them Biden-era, concluded had a non-credible nature. You’ve viewed a redacted version of the complaint as I understand it. Do you accept their conclusions?

SEN. WARNER: Well, first of all, the previous Inspector General, who’d been a long term professional, viewed it as credible. The new–

MARGARET BRENNAN: — Which of the two complaints?

SEN. WARNER: The original- I can’t talk about the contents of the complaint. I’m old fashioned. It’s classified, and the complaint is so redacted, it’s hard to get to the bottom up, I got additional questions. My concern- what the director did, is that this information was not relayed to Congress. There is a process, and we didn’t even- we, and I mean, we the Gang of Eight, didn’t even hear about the complaint until November. We only saw it in February, and we’ve got this complete contradiction where the then lawyer for Director Gabbard said she shared the responsibility she had to share this with Congress in June, the legal responsibility. She later stated that she was not aware of her responsibility. Ignorance of the law is not an excuse if you’re the Director of National Intelligence.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, as I understand it, because when it’s deemed non-credible, it is not necessarily an urgent concern that would —

SEN. WARNER : — There was a ruling of urgency by the first inspector general. That was contradicted by the Trump Inspector General, but the process was still ongoing. The fact that this sat out there for 6,7,8 months now, and we are only seeing it now, raises huge concerns in and of itself.

MARGARET BRENNAN

Well, I know you said you will not share what the intercept and the intelligence was about, or the complaint itself, but CBS has been told by a senior intelligence official the whistleblower complaint included reference to an intelligence intercept between two foreign nationals in which they mentioned someone close to President Donald Trump. US intelligence did not verify whether the conversation itself was more than just gossip. Will you be able to speak to the whistleblower? Will you be able to see this underlying intelligence?

SEN. WARNER: My understanding is the whistleblower has been waiting for guidance, legal guidance, on how to approach the committee.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Does the whistleblower still work for the US government?

SEN. WARNER: I don’t have any idea.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Will you be able to view the intelligence, the intercept itself that she’s accused of not sharing?

SEN. WARNER: My question is- we are trying to get both the redactions and the underlying intelligence, and that’s- that is in process. I’m not going to talk to the content itself, but this whole question, remember, this whistleblower came forward in May. It’s now February of the following year, and we’re still asking questions.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Tom Cotton, the chair, says he’s- he’s comfortable with- with the process to date, but on the–

SEN. WARNER: — I’m- I’m not comfortable with the process, the timing, and I can’t make a judgment about the credibility or the veracity, because it’s been so heavily redacted.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, the director is frustrated with you personally and issued this really long blistering statement saying you’ve repeatedly lied to the American people, that the media also lies, and that that she never had the whistleblower complaint in her possession and saw it for the first time two weeks ago. I guess, the actual hard copy. So, do you care to respond to this accusation that you were lying?

SEN. WARNER: I would respond that I do not believe that Director Gabbard is competent for her position. I don’t believe that she is making America safer by not following the rules and procedures on getting whistleblower complaints to the Congress in a timely fashion. I believe she has been totally inappropriate showing up on a domestic criminal investigation in Georgia around voting machines. I think she has not been appropriate or competent in terms of, frankly, cutting back on investigations into foreign malign influence, literally dismembering the foreign line influence center that’s at the Director of National Intelligence, and we are going to agree to disagree about who’s telling the truth, and I believe her own general counsel, who’s now her deputy general counsel, testified this week that he shared with Director Gabbard, in June her legal obligations.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, the NSA has released a statement saying that they are abiding by the law. We do invite Director Gabbard on this program. Before I let you go, I have to ask you about Iran. There have been a number of think tanks who have published photos of what they believe is evidence of Iran reconstituting and rebuilding its nuclear program that the US bombed eight months ago. Are they rebuilding?

SEN. WARNER: When we struck Iranians nuclear capabilities, our military did a great job. It was not totally obliterated. So, that standard that the President himself set and Iran has been indicated in public documents, is trying to reconstitute. What I fear is that we don’t have the ability to bring the full power of pressure against Iran. A few weeks back, when the Iranian people bravely were in the streets, and there might have been a moment, we couldn’t strike, because the aircraft carrier that was usually in the Mediterranean was off the coast of Venezuela, doing the blockade there. On top of that- on top of that as well, we were unable to bring the full force of pressure of our allies in Europe against Iran, because at that very same moment, President Trump was disrupting NATO with his Greenland play. We are stronger when we use our allies, when we have our full military capabilities in region, and that military is getting stretched, as good as we are, as the President gets engaged in activities all over the world.

MARGARET BRENNAN: You support the diplomacy underway now?

SEN. WARNER: I support the diplomacy. Absolutely.

MARGARET BRENNAN: All right. Senator. Mark Warner, thank you for your time today, Face the Nation will be back in one minute. Stay with us.

[END TRANSCRIPT]

Massive Win for Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi with Voters Giving Her Party a Big Majority


Posted originally on CTH on February 8, 2026 | Sundance

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi took a calculated risk only three months after her October 2025 election victory when she dissolved the Japanese Parliament and called for a snap election. The high-stakes gamble paid off, with Japanese voters handing her ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) a big super-majority Sunday.

Takaichi said in a January press conference, calling for the snap election was a “profoundly weighty decision,” adding that “by doing so, I am also putting my position as prime minister on the line.”

The voters responded with great enthusiasm for her leadership.  Sanae Takaichi was also a protege’ of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, a close personal friend of President Donald Trump.

President Trump who heartedly endorsed Takaichi also celebrated the outcome on Truth Social: “Congratulations to Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and her Coalition on a LANDSLIDE Victory in today’s very important Vote. She is a highly respected and very popular Leader. Sanae’s bold and wise decision to call for an Election paid off big time. Her Party now runs the Legislature, holding a HISTORIC TWO THIRDS SUPERMAJORITY — The first time since World War Il. Sanae: It was my Honor to Endorse you and your Coalition. I wish you Great Success in passing your Conservative, Peace Through Strength Agenda. The wonderful people of Japan, who voted with such enthusiasm, will always have my strong support.”

Yahoo: […] After an election framed as a referendum on Takaichi herself, the LDP party won more than 310 of the 465 seats in Japan’s lower house, marking the first time since World War II that a single party has secured a two-thirds majority. The broader ruling coalition won more than 340 seats.

In an interview with NHK, Takaichi thanked the voters who “braved the cold and walked through the snowy roads to cast their votes.”

“I wanted the voters to give me a mandate because I advocated for responsible, proactive fiscal policy that would significantly shift economic and fiscal policy,” she added.

The hardline conservative, who enjoys US President Donald Trump’s endorsement, has seen high approval ratings since she was elected less than four months ago, making history as the first woman to lead Japan.  She has won over the public with her strong work ethic, savvy social media game and charisma. (more)

Mrs Takaichi, like Shinzo Abe, is a strong Japanese conservative with a deep nationalist perspective.  This Japanese election outcome is the opposite of what China would like to see happen in the region.

Writing on X Sunday, Takaichi thanked President Trump for his endorsement earlier this month and said the potential of the US-Japan alliance was “LIMITLESS.”

From a North American perspective, the alignment of Takaichi and Trump will provide further bolstering to the upcoming dissolution of the USMCA, as Japan will not want to be on the wrong side of the new bilateral agreements likely to happen as an outcome.  Japan will be cautious with any investment positioning in Canada.

The Underlying NSA Intercept – Whistleblower Claims Against Tulsi Gabbard Get More Absurd in Context


February 7, 2026 | Sundance

You know the IC narrative is falling apart quickly when even the New York Times paints the background as gossip.

Within the New York Times reporting we discover more of the underlying context for the NSA intercept.

According to the Times, the NSA intercept was of “two foreign nationals” discussing an American person with some relationship to President Trump.  The underlying concern was about the conversation they intercepted.

Just pulling out the pertinent:

“a whistle-blower report about an intelligence intercept of a call between two foreign nationals discussing a person close to President Trump” … “It is not clear what country the two foreign nationals were from, but the discussion involved Iran.” … “The identity of the person close to Mr. Trump could not be immediately determined.”

[…] “One official said there was no other intelligence that led officials to think the two officials had been speaking truthfully. Some intelligence analysts concluded the two foreign nationals were either gossiping or deliberately spreading misinformation.  As a result of those doubts, Ms. Gabbard moved to restrict the report’s visibility. She also provided the information to Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff, according to people briefed on the events.

The acting intelligence community’s inspector general [a Biden appointee] cleared Ms. Gabbard of wrongdoing after she responded to questions about her actions.” {source}

Summary: The NSA intercepted two foreign nationals talking about Iran and gossiping about someone close to Trump. The NSA snooper documented the conversation. Intel analysts concluded the two foreign nationals were just gossiping.  DNI Gabbard did not put credibility on the issue, but to be safe informed Susie Wiles of the intercept.  That’s it.

The NSA snooper then got big mad about the intelligence analysis of the conversation labeling it as gossip and took out their frustration by blaming Tulsi Gabbard for dismissing it.

Moving on.

Europe Furious as U.S. Subsidy Ends – President Trump’s Demand for Lower Rx Prices Means Immediate European Price Increases


Posted originally on CTH on February 7, 2026 | Sundance

Europe is not happy with President Trump’s demand that drug manufacturers provide U.S. consumers with equitable pricing.

If President Trump will no longer permit Americans to pay the research production costs for pharmaceutical companies through high prices, essentially subsiding pharmaceutical costs for the world, then Rx companies will have to increase their prices throughout Europe. This is making the Europeans very unhappy.

(Bloomberg Businessweek) — For the past few years, Swiss oncologist Christoph Renner has treated blood cancer patients with Lunsumio, a new drug that helps the immune system recognize and destroy malignant cells. Then, last summer, Renner got an email from Roche Holding AG, Lunsumio’s manufacturer, informing him the treatment would no longer be available in Switzerland because health insurers there wouldn’t pay for the infusions. “You see what’s possible,” says Renner, a professor at the University of Basel, “and then you’re told you can’t use it.”

The move was a response to rules President Donald Trump introduced that force drugmakers to reduce their prices in the US to the lowest level paid in other developed countries. In Switzerland, new medications typically cost far less than in the US, so in theory Americans should benefit from the change. The problem is, instead of bringing prices down in the US, pharmaceutical companies are raising them elsewhere.

Yet Switzerland has shown little political willingness to pay more—threatening both the availability of medications in the country and its role as a global leader in developing therapies. Drug prices are the primary driver of the increasing cost of mandatory health coverage, and the topic generates heated debate during the annual reappraisal of insurance rates. “The Swiss cannot and must not pay for price reductions in the USA with their health insurance premiums,” says Elisabeth Baume-Schneider, Switzerland’s home affairs minister.

[…] Drug companies say they need to charge high prices on new medications because so much of their work doesn’t pay off. They spend billions of euros on research, but relatively few formulas turn out to be effective. Even fewer provide the massive profits needed to fund further research—and pay off shareholders. Moreover, companies typically need to make that money early on, because after about two decades on the market, drugs lose patent protection, which drives prices down as generics producers start selling copycats.

Manufacturers argue that American patients bear most of these innovation costs and that it’s only fair for other countries to pay more—especially Switzerland, given its prosperity. A more equitable approach, they say, would be to set prices globally and adjust them country by country based on gross domestic product and purchasing power. (read more)

First President Trump starts making Europe pay for their own defenses and NATO commitments; then he has the audacity to tell them the U.S. will not accept European censorship or free speech rules.  President Trump follows by hitting them with the end to the Marshal plan of one-way tariffs, seriously weakening the amount of revenue within the EU, forcing budget cuts.  Then, as if Trump wasn’t bad enough, he makes it even worse by dispatching expensive Green New Deal energy agreements such as the Paris treaty, and using cheap abundant energy in the U.S. while Europe tries to operate on expensive windmills and solar panels covered in snow.

Now, in addition to forcing them to spend money on their military, now Trump expects the EU to just accept the end to their healthcare subsidies and higher prescription medications.  The absolute nerve of this man.