Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) argues it is time for the United States to make policy decisions to bolster domestic manufacturing of pharmaceuticals and shift away from Mainland China.
During an appearance on Fox News Channel’s “Justice” on Saturday, Blackburn laid out her plan, a bipartisan effort with Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), incentivize those moves.
“It is the Securing America’s Medicine Cabinet Bill,” she said. ‘And this is something that I had focused on for a while. I was concerned about what was happening with antibiotics, and with some prescriptions that were so necessary for surgeries in our country, and we would have shortages. And you start looking at what is happening, and you find out these active pharmaceutical ingredients that are required for making these medications and prescriptions are single-sourced, in guess where? China.”
“And because of that, it is important to secure our supply chain and to bring that manufacturing back to U.S. shores, and I have this legislation, and as you said, Senator Menendez is the lead Democrat co-sponsor on this,” Blackburn continued. “And what it would do is incentivize bringing this manufacturing back and letting these pharmaceutical companies team up with our colleges and universities and put the focus on advanced pharmaceutical manufacturing.”
Later in the segment, Blackburn reminded viewers of China’s ability to manipulate global bodies, and that they’re an adversary, which she deemed to be part of the “new axis of evil.”
“Well, one of the things I think should happen with the U.N. Human Rights Council, and the W.H.O., my goodness, here we have China being protected by the W.H.O., and then they’re wanting to have this seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council,” Blackburn said. “Maybe it’s time to review the funding that we send to them. Maybe it is time to send that message. Is that what China did — listen, China is not our friend. They are our enemy. They have been ripping us off, taking our jobs. They have been sending us this virus this year. They’ve been stealing our intellectual property, and we need to realize they are not our friend.”
“They are part of the new Axis of Evil,” she added. “You’ve got North Korea and China and Iran and Russia. And Judge, these are not people who wish us well. And when you see what China has it done, not only to us but to the entire globe with this pandemic, China’s actions made this pandemic worse because they hid the information. They were not transparent. It is time for us to hold them to account, whether it is through returning our manufacturing, removing these Confucius Institutes, making certain that we have China — we look at their debt. The debt of ours that they hold, a trillion dollars’ worth. Maybe they should waive that debt. There are so many things that we should do.”
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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