Thursday Edition: China's Big Pharma Push
Plus: Checking in on Kari Lake.
Bubba
29 Aug
1. China’s Big Pharma Push
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With the U.S.-China showdown being a key talking point for both presidential candidates, a new analysis looks at China's attempts to move into the U.S. pharmaceutical sector. (Washington Examiner)
The data: China's push to become the worldwide leader on development, manufacturing, and distribution of drugs (a $1.2 trillion global market) appears to be paying off.
Chinese-sourced pharmaceutical imports to the U.S. surged from $2.1 billion in 2020 to $10.3 billion in 2022.
The U.S. heavily relies on China for drugs, with 97% of antibiotics, 95% of ibuprofen, and 70% of acetaminophen sourced from Chinese suppliers.
Imports of cardiovascular drugs and cancer treatments from China have risen by 1147% and 401% respectively since 2017.
American Enterprise Institute fellow Brian J. Miller:
The concentrated Chinese manufacturing of drugs threatens not only our access to vital healthcare but to the U.S. supply chain as well. Drugs often represent the end products of a complex production chain. … China has sought to control the supply of APIs and critical precursors in the manufacturing process. Our dependence on Chinese drug manufacturers is especially concentrated in the generics market, which makeup 90% of all filled prescriptions in the United States. … In addition to cutting corners and sacrificing quality for quantity, Chinese biotechnology firms have engaged in the theft of American citizens’ bulk personal data.
Related: According to a recent study, a large number of key nutrients for U.S. baby formula are imported from China.
Zoom out: While the U.S. has taken steps to decouple from China, other parts of the world, including Europe, have grown more dependent on Chinese goods.
Kamala Harris at the DNC:
I will make sure that we lead the world into the future on space and artificial intelligence. That America, not China, wins the competition for the 21st century and that we strengthen, not abdicate, our global leadership.
Donald Trump at the RNC:
America’s on the cusp of a new golden age, but we will have the courage to seize it. … Remember this: China wants to do it, Japan wants to do it. All of these countries want to do it.
Bubba’s Two Cents
While debates over tariffs have at times divided the GOP, it seems like a consensus has been reached on China. Pretty much everyone, Democrats included, has acknowledged national security should take priority over economics when it comes to trade policy with our East Asian rival. That’s why President Biden extended and expanded on Trump’s China tariffs.
2. There’s Only One Donald Trump
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Kari Lake, a staunch Donald Trump ally, is starting to fall well behind Democrat Ruben Gallego in Arizona’s U.S. Senate race. (The Hill)
The vibes: The Arizona Police Association, which endorsed Trump for president a few days ago and backed Lake in her failed 2022 gubernatorial bid, crossed the aisle to endorse Gallego on Monday.
According to Decision Desk HQ’s polling aggregate, Lake is trailing her Democratic opponent by 6 points.
A new survey by Rasmussen Reports, which is generally considered to be a Republican-friendly pollster, has Lake down 8 points.
President Biden narrowly took Arizona in 2020, winning the state by 0.3%.
Zoom out: Some Republicans have criticized the party for nominating provocateurs like Lake instead of more traditional candidates.
Per polling aggregator FiveThirtyEight, North Carolina gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson, a Republican who’s called Hillary Clinton a “heifer” and Michelle Obama a “man,” trails his opponent by 8 points.
Royce White, the GOP’s U.S. Senate candidate in Minnesota, has described himself as an “antisemite” and once led racial justice protests in support of George Floyd.
Bubba’s Two Cents
Trump, like these imitators, is brash, but that’s not necessarily the only thing that got him to where he is — that’s only one element. These C-list GOP candidates lack the fame, fortune, and ability to circumvent the mainstream media and communicate directly with voters, and the value of that cannot be overstated. Time will tell how these candidates fare, but it’s not looking very good. The GOP should be taking a long look at the vetting process that led to candidates like this, but I won’t be holding my breath.
3. The Power of Envy
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New research suggests tapping into voters’ feelings is more effective than facts if you want to persuade Americans on policy. (The American Saga)
A recent study by UCLA economist Ricardo Perez-Truglia: Researchers tried to gauge which type of information would be most effective in getting people to support higher tax rates on the wealthy.
They learned that giving participants cold hard facts (such as how much money billionaires make and how they use tax loopholes) had no effect and in some cases backfired.
Telling participants that billionaires pay low effective tax rates actually made them less likely to support higher taxes.
What did work: Showing participants “images of lavish homes owned by billionaires” greatly increased support for higher taxes on the ultra-rich, “suggesting that visual depictions of wealth disparity can significantly influence public opinion.”
What Perez-Truglia told independent journalist Zaid Jilani:
If we are talking numbers — this is how many billions of dollars a billionaire makes or whatever — people don’t get upset or envious of that information…but if you show me a picture of a mansion…that might trigger an emotional reaction.
Related: It’s true that billionaires pay lower effective tax rates than they have in past decades.
But wealthy Americans also contribute the lion’s share to federal income taxes, with the top 1% paying roughly 46%.
Manhattan Institute senior fellow Brian Riedl’s analysis of tax-the-rich proposals:
[An] aggressive package of new taxes on corporations and the wealthiest 1% or 2% of households could raise, at most, 2% of GDP in revenues—and likely far less, depending on the economic consequences of layering multiple new taxes on top of one another. …
Most of America’s income is earned by the non-wealthy, and, like Scandinavia and most of Europe, the U.S. will need to tax those families considerably to meet any ambitious revenue needs. Taxing the rich cannot even cover baseline deficits, much less finance the progressive spending agenda.
Bubba’s Two Cents
It’s not surprising that appealing to Americans’ feelings might work better than hitting them with information. Voters are human beings, not emotionless robots. But if you look around at the state of politics and the media that’s a huge driver of the national conversation, I wouldn’t say there’s a huge focus on statistics and data. So it couldn’t hurt to row against that tide without losing a human touch (which is something we’re explicitly trying to do here at Bubba News).
4. Free Speech Moment
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The anti-censorship movement is gaining momentum - and coalescing around Donald Trump. (Axios)
The trend: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and former congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard endorsed Trump this week.
Elon Musk and other tech lords have also come around to the former president.
Trump’s also been rallying support from Joe Rogan-adjacent podcast types like Russell Brand (he recently appeared on comedian Theo Von’s podcast and is scheduled for a sitdown with popular podcaster Lex Fridman).
Connecting the dots: The common thread uniting this motley, anti-establishment crew is a disdain for wokeness and a desire to say whatever they want.
The moment: A number of free speech-related controversies have broken out over the past few weeks.
On Monday, Facebook founder and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a letter to the House Judiciary Committee that the Biden administration had pressured his company to censor information (including humor and satire) during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the wake of anti-immigrant riots in England and Ireland, U.K. authorities have arrested citizens over online posts said to have incited “racial hatred.”
Telegram CEO Pavel Durov’s arrest this week has sparked debate over online crime and free speech.
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