Time for a NATO Approach on Preventing Foreign Free Riding on Medical Innovation
National Review
America is filling the world's medicine cabinet. Our allies need to help pay for what's inside.
Many global challenges involve public goods — benefits that everyone enjoys, regardless of who pays for them. This makes free riding a persistent and difficult problem.
President Trump’s effort to demand that NATO allies pay their fair share was designed to reduce such free riding. In 2024, the U.S. spent 3.4 percent of GDP on defense — nearly twice the NATO average. And because the U.S. economy is so large, that spending covered two-thirds of NATO’s entire bill. American taxpayers continue to underwrite the global public good of security.
This challenge isn’t limited to defense for which U.S. pressure to raise foreign NATO investments has been successful. Other global issues with concentrated costs — like climate change — have also seen repeated attempts to curb free riding through international agreements.
The same pattern holds in medicine, where global access to lifesaving treatments depends on American investment. Just as the United States underwrites Europe’s defense, it also underwrites Europe’s access to innovation — whereby the U.S. is disproportionately rewarding the R&D investment that makes new treatments and cures possible.
It’s time to rebalance our alliances by demanding fair contributions not just to security and climate goals, but to the medical breakthroughs the United States helps make possible.