US President Donald Trump announced the plan to introduce high import duties for pharmaceutical products that have so far been mostly exempt from duties. According to analysts, there is a risk that the measure may increase drug prices in the US and cause outages.
US President Donald Trump has expanded his business policy to include a pharmaceutical sector. After a focus on duties on cars, steel, or aluminum, he announced that it is planning to impose high import tariffs on drugs, so far it has written pharmaceutical products predominantly free from tariffs.
According to the new Agreement with the United States and the European Union, 15 % CLO is already introduced into some European products, including medicines. However, Trump threatens to make up to 200 % tariffs for pharmaceuticals produced outside Europe. Experts point out that such a step can endanger the availability of generic drugs, increase prices for patients and cause outages in supplies.
“Duties would mainly affect consumers who would feel the inflation effect directly when paying recipes and indirectly through higher premiums,” said economist Diederik Stadig from Ing. According to him, a 25 % duty would also be a gradual increase in drug prices by 10 to 14 percent.
Trump argues that the aim is to move production back to the US and reduce dependence on imports, especially from China and India. Several pharmaceutical companies, such as Roche and Johnson & Johnson, have already announced billions of investments in the expansion of US operations. However, experts recall that the construction of production capacities in the US takes years and the generic drug manufacturers could completely print this out of the market.
