The Trump administration says it's aiming to lower drug costs for Americans.
President Donald Trump sent letters to 17 major drug companies last week giving them 60 days to cut prices for U.S. consumers to the lowest prices paid by other countries.
The president wrote the administration will "deploy every tool in our arsenal" if companies don't comply.
The move follows an executive order he signed in May which focused on cutting drug prices.
But more detailed enforcement actions against drug manufacturers may be needed for them to follow suit, according to Tricia Neuman, with health policy research organization KFF.
"I think if they start to see the hammer and they believe that this will be enforced, and I think we could see drug companies start to change their behavior," Neuman said.
She says that could come in the form of tariffs.
On Tuesday the president continued threats of potential tariffs on the pharmaceutical industry, saying in an interview that pharmaceutical imports could eventually face a 250% tariff rate.
Country-specific tariffs are set to go into effect Friday and target some countries like India, which produce and export a number of pharmaceuticals to the U.S.
Those additional tariffs could also impact drug prices for Americans.
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The president claims that his move to push pharmaceutical companies to lower prices has already cut drug prices by up to 1,500%.
That is not mathematically possible, because it would mean people were being paid to take those medicines.
When Scripps News reached out to the administration to ask about the claim, a White House spokesperson did not offer any evidence of where that number came from.