Trump threatens 'very, very high' tariffs on imported drugs
US President Donald Trump has threatened to impose tariffs at a rate as high as 200pc on imported drugs on Tuesday night in an effort to bring factories to the US.
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Mr Trump has told reporters he vows to impose “very, very high” tariffs on imported drugs.
“We’ll be announcing something very soon on pharmaceuticals," he said on Tuesday night.
“We’re going to give people about a year, a year and a half to come in and after that they’re going to be tariffed if they bring pharmaceuticals into the country. They’re going to be tariffed at a very, very high rate - like 200pc.”
Shares in US pharmaceutical giants, including Pfizer and Eli Lilly, fell after Mr Trump’s comments.
Eli Lilly, which had been up 2.5pc earlier, dropped to minus 0.4pc compared with the start of trading.
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The high rates, if imposed, could prove to be a setback for UK-US trade, weeks after Sir Keir Starmer signed a deal with Mr Trump.
Britain exports £8.8bn of medicinal and pharmaceutical products to the US, according to The Telegraph, and is home to some of the world’s largest drug companies including GSK and AstraZeneca.
British manufacturers have already been ramping up their investment in the US as they race to protect access to the world’s largest economy.
In November last year, AstraZeneca said it would invest $3.5bn (£2.6bn) in research and manufacturing in the US.
It said its “expanding footprint” would create more than 1,000 jobs in the country.
Two months later, it ditched an “absolutely ready to go” £450m expansion of a vaccine factory in Speke, Merseyside, after the Government cut its subsidy for the development.
GSK is also ramping up its investment in US factories, announcing its biggest-ever investment, at $800m, in US manufacturing two weeks before Mr Trump was elected.
In May, it said it would invest a further $120m to expand a plant in Pennsylvania.
The measure would be especially punitive for Ireland, which is responsible for 28pc of America’s imported drugs.
The country, which exports $65.7bn-worth of pharmaceuticals, includes 30,000 people currently employed in plants by US drug companies.
Economists have warned that higher tariffs on drugs would hurt American patients, and that taxpayers would end up having to pay more for US government healthcare schemes.
It came as Mr Trump said he would “probably” announce a new tariff rate on the EU in the next two days.