Created the Buy America program to strengthen our steel industry and plans to expand this important program to include pharmaceuticals thus reducing our reliance on China for medical production
Expand the Buy America program to include pharmaceuticals.
Occurrences
Evidence
legacy_unverified · Source version not recorded · locator unknown
The bill title and summary say it is the "Manufacturing API, Drugs, and Excipients in America Act" and that it would "mitigate drug shortages" and incentivize manufacturing of "active pharmaceutical ingredients, excipients, medical diagnostic devices, pharmaceuticals, and personal protective equipment in the United States."
legacy_unverified · Source version not recorded · locator unknown
Aderholt urged additional Buy America requirements for federal procurement of medical supplies and active pharmaceutical ingredients.
legacy_unverified · Source version not recorded · locator unknown
The order directed agencies to increase domestic procurement of Essential Medicines, Medical Countermeasures, and Critical Inputs.
Assessments
Aderholt made a concrete same-term effort by urging the Trump administration in April 2020 to apply Buy America requirements to medical supplies and active pharmaceutical ingredients. Executive Order 13944 later in August 2020 created domestic procurement preferences for essential medicines, medical countermeasures, and critical inputs, which partially matched the promised outcome. However, it was limited to defined essential products and executive implementation rather than a broad statutory expansion of the Buy America program to pharmaceuticals generally, so this is not full delivery.
The promised policy change was not delivered. A related bill, H.R. 2707, the MADE in America Act, was introduced on April 19, 2023 by Rep. Buddy Carter, aimed at incentivizing U.S. pharmaceutical manufacturing, but it did not itself expand the Buy America/Buy American program to pharmaceuticals. Congress.gov shows Aderholt was not the sponsor and was not among the bill's 13 cosponsors, and the bill's latest action was only a referral to the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health on December 17, 2024, not passage into law. As of June 14, 2026, there is no verified enacted federal change creditable to Aderholt that expanded Buy America to include pharmaceuticals, so the promise is best judged unfulfilled rather than partially delivered.
Aderholt did not enact an expansion of the federal Buy America program to cover pharmaceuticals. A related proposal (the "Manufacturing API, Drugs, and Excipients in America Act"/MADE in America Act, H.R.2707) would incentivize domestic pharmaceutical manufacturing but was introduced by another member, did not itself amend Buy America, and remained at the introduced/subcommittee stage (movement noted in Dec 2024) rather than becoming law. Because legislative activity aligned with the goal exists but the candidate did not author/secure enactment or a clear, attributable advancement, this is partial credit rather than delivered.
The cited evidence shows only an adjacent pharmaceutical domestic-manufacturing tax-credit proposal in the 118th Congress, introduced by another member, that did not expand Buy America coverage to pharmaceuticals and did not become law. The payload does not show Aderholt writing, sponsoring, materially advancing, or otherwise delivering the promised Buy America expansion during or after the 2018 House term.