NEW: President Trump signs executive order to bring drug manufacturing back home

Visiting Ohio today, President Trump just signed an executive order to expand “Made in America” production, bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States, and ensure that our citizens have access to the life-saving medicines they need.

These actions come at a crucial time “as we fight this battle against the invisible enemy from China,” White House Director of Trade & Manufacturing Policy Peter Navarro says.

Here are a few things the new order will accomplish:

Establish “Buy American” rules for Federal Government agencies
Strip away regulatory barriers to domestic pharmaceutical manufacturing
Help spark the manufacturing technologies needed to keep drug prices low and move more medicine production onshore

President Trump signed the order today while visiting a Whirlpool manufacturing plant in Clyde, Ohio. This plant represents another important piece of President Trump’s pro-America, pro-worker trade strategy toward China and other countries.

In January 2018, the United States challenged years of unfair trade practices by imposing tariffs that stopped washing machine manufacturers, including Whirlpool, from getting undercut by Chinese imports. After President Trump took action, Whirlpool’s Clyde plant alone was able to create 200 new jobs for U.S. workers.

“Washington stood idly by as other countries engaged in unfair trade practices, such as massive subsidies, currency manipulation, and . . . the wholesale dumping of foreign-made products sold below cost for the sole purpose of driving you out of business” so they could later jack up prices, President Trump told workers today.

President Trump: “But we didn’t let that happen, did we?”

Today’s executive order directs the Department of Health and Human Services to use the Defense Production Act to buy essential medicines and other equipment from within the United States. Drug prices will be kept low for customers, and American companies will be able to compete more fairly on the world stage as a result.

In addition, the FDA and the Environmental Protection Agency will now give priority to domestic manufacturers during the regulatory review of pharmaceutical ingredients and essential medicines. Federal agencies will also help prevent the trafficking of counterfeit medicines from third-party sellers online.

“It’s a great day for America,” Navarro said. “The President has promised that he would bring home the supply chains in production for our essential medicines, and today we're taking a very big step towards fulfillment of that promise.”

Peter Navarro: It’s important to bring our supply chains home

President Trump has long made returning blue-collar jobs to America a top priority. Now, the Coronavirus pandemic has made even clearer the risks of becoming reliant on foreign nations for our essential supplies. Fortunately, more than any other president in history, President Trump is a fearless advocate for both buying and hiring American.

As a result, his list of trade accomplishments keeps growing. NAFTA is gone, replaced by a far stronger United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. China and its enablers on the global stage are at last being held accountable. Trade agreements with South Korea, Japan, and others have been renegotiated to protect American jobs and customers.

“Globalization has made the financial elites who donate to politicians very wealthy, but it’s left millions and millions of our workers with nothing but poverty and heartache—and our towns and cities with empty factories and plants,” President Trump said.

“We’ve made extraordinary progress in reversing the dangerous tide of globalism.”

WATCH: Our vision to bring millions of jobs back to U.S. soil

READ IT: President Trump orders Government to buy American!