Trump threatens 200% drug tariffs

President Donald Trump on Tuesday threatened to impose tariffs of up to 200% on drugs imported into the US.

“They’ll be tariffs at very high prices, like 200%,” Trump told the cabinet meeting.

But he suggested that those taxes would not come into effect anytime soon, saying, “Give people about a year, a year, half.”

“We give them a certain period of time to put together their actions,” Trump said, apparently referring to drugmakers.

Details of the drug tariffs “will come at the end of the month,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told CNBC after a cabinet meeting.

“With drugs and semiconductors, these studies were completed at the end of the month, so the president will then set a policy.

There is no guarantee that he will set drug tariffs at a 200% rate, as the President repeatedly threatened and subsequently changed courses on tariff proposals. Drug stocks have remained largely unchanged following Trump’s comments.

It’s Trump’s most important comment on drug-specific tariffs since April, when his administration began investigating so-called Section 232 on these products. That legal authority allows the Secretary of Commerce to investigate the impact of imports on national security.

These planned tariffs will take a much-anticipated blow to pharmaceutical companies. Many warned that collection could raise costs, block US investment, disrupt the drug supply chain, and put patients at risk, and put them at risk. The industry is already navigating the fallout from Trump’s drug pricing policy. It claims this threatens both the revenues and the ability of drugmakers to invest in research and development.

Trump said tariffs encourage pharmaceutical companies to move manufacturing operations to the US. Eli Lily, Johnson & Johnson, Abbvie And others have already spent more money on the US after dramatically reducing domestic drug manufacturing over the past few decades.