US President Donald Trump’s brand-new tariff announcement is set to take a toll on not only the pharmaceutical industry, but also heavy-duty trucks, kitchen cabinets and upholstered furniture. Doubling down on US manufacturing, the American leader’s ‘America First’ agenda will be pushing these new punishing tariffs to go into effect on October 1, 2025.
The MAGA leader’s Thursday (US time) revelation comes a day after the US Commerce Department announced a series of national security investigations on robotics, medical devices and industrial machinery to study the ramifications of imports.
The new probes, on top of the other dozens of ongoing investigations, inevitably prompted fears for yet another tariff wave in the making. Although more official word on any potential finalisation of import taxes related to the Wednesday announcement are still pending, here’s what kind of storm Thursday brought in.
New Trump tariff announcement
Now that Trump has slapped another round of punitive tariffs on a number of things, here’s what the numbers are saying:
100% tariff on branded or patented pharmaceutical drugs
50% tariff on kitchen cabinets and bathroom vanities
30% tariff on upholstered furniture
25% of heavy-duty trucks
As expected, the 79-year-old commander-in-chief’s reasoning for this fresh addition to his tariff regime was “large scale ‘FLOODING’ of these products into the United States by other Countries.”
As for the new heavy-duty truck tariffs, Trump noted that they intended to protect manufactures from “unfair outside competition,” while benefiting companies like PCAR.O Peterbilt and DTGGe.DE Freightliner.
Meanwhile, on the pharma front, he added on Truth Social, “We will be imposing a 100% Tariff on any branded or patented pharmaceutical Product, unless a Company IS BUILDING their Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Plant in America.” Maintaining that for projects where construction was already underway would be exempt from such duties, he said, “There will, therefore, be no Tariff on these Pharmaceutical Products if construction has started.”
Commerce Department was against the tariffs
Despite Trump’s announcements, the Commerce Department had a different outlook on the matter. According to the Guardian, officials are believed to have previously advised against the imposition of these new truck tariffs set to go into effect next week as Mexico, Japan, Canada, Finland and Germany, aka the top five import countries are “allies or close partners of the United States posing no threat to US national security.”
Meanwhile, the US Commerce Department’s Wednesday proclamation about its new probes into imports of robotics, medical equipment and industrial machinery showed they are keen to fins out if “domestic production of robotics and industrial machinery, and their parts and components can meet domestic demand.”
In light of that, it’s quite likely that surgical needs like insulin pumps, computed tomography scanners, magnetic resonance imaging machines, pacemakers, heart valves, hearing aids, blood glucose monitors, coronary stents and orthopedic appliances could eventually be hit by a round of tariffs.
Imported surgical face masks, infusion pumps and syringes, N95 respirators, gloves, gowns, IV bags, sutures, wheelchairs, hospital beds, gauze or bandages and crutches are also susceptible to levies in the future.