President Donald Trump. Credit: White House
President Donald Trump said Thursday in a post on Truth Social that his administration will impose a 100% tariff on some prescription drug imports Oct. 1.
The new tariff will affect branded pharmaceutical products and patented pharmaceutical products, Trump said.
A non-U.S. manufacturer can avoid paying the tariff if it is building a pharmaceutical manufacturing plant in America, Trump said.
"'Is Building' will be defined as, 'breaking ground' and/or 'under construction,'" Trump wrote in the post.
The Trump administration intends to impose a 50% tariff starting Oct. 1 on imports of kitchen cabinets, bathroom vanities and associated products and a 30% tariff on imports of upholstered furniture.
The new tariffs are necessary because imports of the affected products are flooding into the United States, Trump said.
"We must protect, for National Security and other reasons, our Manufacturing process," Trump said.
What it means: If the Trump administration goes ahead with plans to impose the tariff on prescription drugs, and it ends up applying to many manufacturers, the tariff could sharply increase what employer health plan participants pay for some drugs.
A new, large tariff could also reduce or eliminate the supply of some drugs.
U.S. drug imports: Analysts are not sure how much of the current U.S. prescription drug supply depends on imports.
Many people commented saying about 80% of the active pharmaceutical ingredients in U.S. drugs are imported, but "questions remain about the origin of this figure," according to a Congressional Research Service report completed in 2020.
"The extent to which the United States relies on other countries for medical products is not entirely known due to limitations in data collected by [the U.S. Food and Drug Administration] and trade data," the CRS analysts said.
Trump administration actions: Trump has been talking about imposing tariffs on drug imports for months.
In July, Trump said the administration might impose a 200% tariff on some drug imports.
The White House appeared to highlight the importance of the new Trump social media tariff posts by putting a link to a New York Post article about the posts on the White House Wire website.
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