President Donald Trump’s tariffs have tanked the markets, but he’s only just getting started.
The White House will soon announce a “major” tariff on pharmaceuticals, Trump said Tuesday night at the National Republican Congressional Committee’s annual dinner in Washington, D.C.
The president did not provide an exact date for an announcement, however Trump described pharmaceutical tariffs as “something that we have to do.”
“Once we do that, they’re going to come rushing back into our country because we’re the big market,” he said. “We’re going to be announcing very shortly a major tariff on pharmaceuticals. And when they hear that, they will leave China, they will leave other places, because they have to sell.”
President Trump: “We’re going to tariff our pharmaceuticals and once we do that they’re going to come rushing back into our country because we’re the big market…So, we’re going to be announcing very shortly a major tariff on pharmaceuticals.” pic.twitter.com/rdBOewo7MW
— CSPAN (@cspan) April 9, 2025
Though pharmaceuticals were spared from sweeping new tariffs unveiled by Trump in a “Liberation Day” ceremony last week, the president has long expressed interest in putting levies on medicines.
“The pharmaceutical companies are going to come roaring back. They’re coming roaring back, they’re all coming back to our country because if they don’t, they got a big tax to pay,” he said in a Rose Garden event for the announcement what he labelled “reciprocal” tariffs.
In February, Trump said the tariff on pharmaceuticals and semiconductors could be around 25 percent.
“It’ll be 25 percent and higher, and it’ll go very substantially higher over the course of a year,” he told reporters at the time. “But we want to give them time to come in because, as you know, when they come into the United States and they have their plant or factory here, there is no tariff. So we want to give them a little bit of a chance.”
The U.S. imported about $200 billion in pharmaceutical products last year—more than double the amount it exported, according to investment research and management firm Morningstar.
“With roughly $200 billion in pharmaceutical imports in 2024, a 10 percent tariff could amount to a $20 billion headwind across the industry, with the biggest firms seeing potential annual tariffs as high as $1 billion,” Morningstar director Karen Andersen wrote.
Markets crashed in levels not seen since March 2020 after Trump announced a baseline tariff of 10 percent on all imports and additional levies ranging from 17 percent to 50 percent on some 60 other countries.
Still, the president is unbothered. Trump touted his “legendary” tariffs at the dinner with Republicans, bragging about how world leaders have been “kissing [his] a–” to negotiate deals.
“This is the largest transaction in the history of our country,” he said. “I’m telling you, these countries are calling us up kissing my a–. They are. They are dying to make a deal.”
The post Now Trump’s Tariffs Are Coming For Your Medicine appeared first on The Daily Beast.
