President Trump vowed to lower the cost of prescription drugs on Tuesday, in part by slashing regulations that put restrictions on how pharmaceutical companies do business.

"You folks have done a tremendous job, but we have to get prices down," Trump said during a meeting with pharmaceutical executives at the White House.

Executives from Merck and Johnson & Johnson were among the attendees at Tuesday's meetings. Many of the executives asked Trump to address high taxes and burdensome regulations in the hopes that doing so could lower costs for patients.

"We have to lower the drug prices," Trump said.

He has previously floated a policy that would allow the government to negotiate lower drug prices as a way to pressure pharmaceutical companies into offering cheaper medications.

The president also lamented the slow pace of Food and Drug Administration approvals, which he said can delay the use of potentially life-saving drugs by dragging out the review process.

"We're going to get the approval process much faster," Trump said.

Trump said future trade policies would "prioritize that foreign countries pay their fair share for U.S. manufactured drugs so our drug companies have greater financial resources to accelerate the development of new cures."

"Right now, it's very unfair what other countries are doing to us," Trump said. "And one thing really I want you to do: I've seen this over the years, but a lot of the companies have moved out, they don't make the drugs in our country anymore. A lot of that has to do with regulation, a lot of it has to do with the fact that other countries take advantage of ours with their money and their money supply and devaluation. Because our country has been run so badly, we know nothing about devaluation. You look at Japan. They play the money market, they play the devaluation market, while we sit here like a bunch of dummies."

Rep. Greg Walden, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, attended the meeting, as did executives from Novartis, Eli Lilly and Celgene.