MW Trump teases targeted tariffs on overseas drug manufacturers

MarketWatch

'We're going to be announcing, very shortly, a major tariff on pharmaceuticals,' he tells attendees of a Republican fundraising dinner

With the next set of White House-imposed tariffs just hours away from taking effect - including the attention-hogging 104% rate to be levied on products from China as they're imported into the U.S. - President Donald Trump indicated he intends to roll out more product-specific tariffs down the road.

The Republican president has previously threatened import taxes on goods like copper, lumber and pharmaceutical drugs - all of which are currently exempt from Trump's "reciprocal" levies.

Speaking Tuesday evening at a Republican National Congressional Committee dinner, Trump called out one particular industry in his crosshairs: pharmaceuticals XPH PJP IHE.

Trump boasted at the NRCC event, an important venue for fundraising by House Republicans, that he was about to impart "breaking news."

"We're going to be announcing, very shortly, a major tariff on pharmaceuticals," he continued.

Trump went on to observe that the U.S. no longer produces many of the prescription drugs its citizens take and said new tariffs would change that - bringing more drug production back to the U.S.

Five of the largest companies in the sector, as ranked by 2023 pharmaceuticals revenue, are headquartered in the U.S., according to the executive search firm Proclinical. The other five - Roche (CH:ROG) (RHHBY), Sanofi (FR:SAN) $(SNY)$, AstraZeneca (UK:AZN) $(AZN)$, Novartis (CH:NOVN) $(NVS)$ and GSK (UK:GSK) $(GSK)$ - are European.

The newly imposed tariffs, announced by Trump last week in his "liberation day" event in the White House Rose Garden, are scheduled to take effect at midnight Eastern time.

The Associated Press contributed.

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-MarketWatch

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April 08, 2025 23:32 ET (03:32 GMT)

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