America’s biggest vulnerability to China may not be military hardware or cyber intrusions — it may be sitting in the nation’s medicine cabinets. A new report from the U.S. Israel Education Association (USIEA) warns that the United States’ overwhelming reliance on Chinese-sourced pharmaceutical ingredients is a national security liability, and it points to an unexpected solution: the Abraham Accords.
According to the report, 41% of the Key Sourcing Materials used to produce U.S.-approved active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) come exclusively from China. Beijing is the sole supplier for at least one essential KSM in 679 APIs — roughly 37% of all U.S. APIs. Former FDA Associate Commissioner and USIEA Senior Fellow Peter Pitts warned that if China ever weaponized its leverage, “we’d be in very tough straits.”
The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated how fragile the system is. When a Shanghai contrast-agent plant shut down during China’s 2022 lockdowns, U.S. hospitals saw drastic drops in angiograms, perfusion scans and critical imaging used for stroke and cancer diagnoses. Past incidents, including a tainted Chinese-made anticoagulant that killed 81 Americans in 2008, underscore the risks.
USIEA argues that the U.S. must “friend-shore” production by shifting pharmaceutical supply chains toward trusted allies — particularly Israel, the UAE, Bahrain and Morocco — leveraging the diplomatic and economic framework established under the Abraham Accords. To do so, the organization is pushing for the creation of an FDA Abraham Accords Office, a forward-deployed regulatory mission designed to coordinate with manufacturers in partner nations while keeping the FDA’s gold-standard oversight intact.
A bipartisan bill, H.R.1262, already passed by the House, contains provisions to establish the office. Supporters say the Abraham Accords nations have the stability, technical capacity and political alignment needed to meet U.S. pharmaceutical demand — and to counter China’s growing footprint in the region.
Kimball, Pitts and USIEA officials warn that Beijing is actively courting Middle Eastern nations, including Morocco. They argue that deeper U.S. engagement through the Accords could shut the door on China’s influence while reinforcing America’s access to safe, reliable medicines.
“In a world where supply disruptions can threaten national stability as much as military conflict,” USIEA writes, “ensuring access to essential medicines is an act of sovereignty.”
