Donald Trump and RFK Jr want to ‘Make America Healthy Again’. Where does that leave Europe?

US President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to put America first in his second term – but his domestic health agenda could impact those beyond his own country.

Public health became an unlikely hot topic in the waning days of the US election, with Trump saying he would let Robert F Kennedy Jr – a prominent vaccine sceptic, environmental lawyer, member of the Kennedy political dynasty, and presidential hopeful turned Trump ally – “go wild” on federal health agencies in a bid to “make America healthy again”.

Trump is notoriously unpredictable, so it’s not clear exactly how far the duo will go, but in a post-election interview with NPR, Kennedy offered some clues.

He said Trump has given him three mandates: to rid regulatory agencies like the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of “corruption and conflicts,” to “return the agencies to the gold standard empirically based, evidence-based science and medicine,” and to “end the chronic disease epidemic” with results in two years.

We don’t yet know whether Kennedy will become the de facto US health czar – or how long he’ll stay in Trump’s good graces – but regardless of his role, the incoming administration appears poised to curb the authority of US health and scientific agencies.

Trump’s other “America first” priorities will also deeply affect the health sector.

Some proposals, like ending the practice of adding fluoride to water, would predominantly affect Americans, but other changes could ripple across Europe. Here’s how.

Trump has proposed a 10 per cent universal tariff on all imports into the US, which could affect global trade for medicines and the raw materials used for drugs as Europe is already grappling with shortages.

The US is the European Union’s main trading partner for