US Department of Commerce by John Sonderman
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Today, Americans for Tax Reform submitted a public comment urging the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security to narrow their Section 232 national security investigation of pharmaceutical imports to adversarial trading partners. Tariffs and/or quotas on American allies would hurt patients and the U.S. pharmaceutical industry, threatening America’s global competitiveness.
A significant majority of imported pharmaceutical products come from Europe: in 2023, the U.S. imported $203 billion of pharmaceutical imports, 73 percent of which came from Europe. Specifically, Ireland, Germany, and Switzerland. Broadly applied tariffs or quotas on allies likely will not divert production away from Europe (or other partners, like India) into the U.S., but instead make medicines more expensive for consumers.
At a time when the Trump Administration has rightly made it a goal to lower the cost of prescription drugs, such a significant increase in prices would force millions of Americans into precarious financial situations.
The strain tariffs would impose on American pharmaceutical manufacturers would threaten supply chains, American manufacturing jobs, and investment in new biotechnological innovation. This loss of innovation would cede ground to China’s rapidly expanding biotech innovation sector, raising even more significant national security concerns.
To read ATR’s comments in full, click here or see below.
