President Trump likes to talk about taking on the biggest pharmaceutical companies and bringing manufacturing home. But with his long-awaited announcement on Thursday to impose tariffs of 100 percent on imported brand-name medicines, the president appeared to have given many of the richest companies a reprieve.
Giant companies that make brand-name drugs do a significant majority of that manufacturing in either the United States or Europe. Among the best known are Botox, formulated in Ireland, as well as popular weight-loss drugs, produced in Denmark, Ireland and the United States.
Mr. Trump’s 100 percent tariff, expected to go into effect on Oct. 1, would not apply to drugs imported from the European Union. Instead, most of those brand-name products from the European Union are expected to be hit by a tariff of up to 15 percent secured as part of a trade deal over the summer. It was not immediately clear when that will take effect.
However, big drugmakers like Roche, Novartis and AstraZeneca do some manufacturing in their home countries of Switzerland and Britain, which are not part of the European Union. To avoid paying tariffs of 100 percent on those products, they would most likely need to tell the Trump administration they plan to move some of that production to the United States.
The highest tariffs could also apply to some brand-name manufacturing in countries like Singapore, China and India, which account for a relatively small share of the brand-name drugs Americans take.
The president announced the tariffs in a social media post Thursday night, and many of the details remained unclear. An administration official said on Friday that a formal proclamation detailing the policy was likely to follow next week.
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The post Trump’s Tariffs Would Spare Many Rich Drugmakers While Punishing Some Small Ones appeared first on New York Times.
