H.R. 4780 — USTRx Act

This section states congressional findings that foreign pharmaceutical price controls distort global trade and competition, undervalue U.S. pharmaceutical innovations, diminish incentives for new medicines, and threaten U.S. patient access to treatments; and expresses the sense of Congress that the U.S. must use trade tools to promote transparency, procedural fairness, non-discrimination, and full market access abroad while requiring foreign countries to bear a fair share of drug development costs.

This section establishes in the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) a Chief Pharmaceutical Trade Negotiator position—appointed by the President with Senate advice and consent, referred to the Senate Finance Committee, holding office at the President's pleasure, and ranking as Ambassador—who conducts trade negotiations and enforces agreements on U.S. pharmaceutical products, addresses high-income countries' adverse practices impacting U.S. manufacturers' market access, advocates for U.S. manufacturers and consumers, and coordinates with the Chief Innovation and Intellectual Property Negotiator as appropriate. The section further requires USTR to (1) annually compile and update a list of high-income countries per World Bank statistics; (2) submit through the Chief, for each such country, an annual report to the House Ways and Means and Senate Finance Committees (also publicly posted on the USTR website) detailing the prior fiscal year's pharmaceutical trade practices review, assessing them against criteria such as lack of fairness, nondiscrimination, transparency, market-based recognition of innovative medicines, reciprocal access, innovation incentives, trade agreement consistency, and unjustifiable burdens on U.S. commerce, and describing U.S. responsive actions (including under Title III of the Trade Act of 1974); and (3) within 30 days of determining a practice meets adverse criteria, submit to those committees a response plan that may include initiating a Title III investigation under 19 U.S.C. 2412(b)(1).