On Thursday, Donald Trump announced that he would be keeping his campaign promise of lowering pharmaceutical prices by … imposing a 100 percent tariff on all branded and patented pharmaceuticals made overseas unless the companies that manufacture them are breaking ground on US factories in the next less than a week — in which case they will merely be subject to the current 15 percent tariff on most European goods, or 50 on Indian. This will go into effect October 1, so you probably don’t have time to stock up. In case you are confused, this will not lower pharmaceutical prices, and neither will bringing the manufacturing of these pharmaceuticals to the United States, because that is not how anything works.
The strangest thing about this is that the United States is already a leading manufacturer of both pharmaceuticals and active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs). In 2023, we produced 53 percent of the APIs in medications consumed in the United States. We produce about 45 percent of all injectable drugs, more than any other nation on earth. India produces the vast majority of pills, but they are also less likely to be affected by these tariffs because most of the medications produced there are generics — although they’re worried about their “biosimilar” drugs. Thirty-one percent of finished drugs sold in the United States are also manufactured here, a higher percentage than any other nation.
The main countries that will actually be affected by this? Our allies in Europe — Ireland in particular, which produces billions of dollars in cancer drugs like Keytruda, weight-loss drugs, and other pharmaceuticals that are then shipped to the United States.
Still, there aren’t going to be too many manufacturers affected by this, because most have at least a toe-in-the-water in the States.
During his announcement, Trump also complained about how we have been subsidizing the costs of pharmaceuticals around the world and began rambling about how other nations were nefariously getting lower pharmaceutical prices from manufacturers. He claimed that this move will somehow lower pharmaceutical prices in the United States, which it will not, because that is not the problem.
He failed to mention that we could lower our pharmaceutical prices, too — and under President Joe Biden, Medicare was empowered to negotiate with big drug companies for the very first time in our history. Now, by turning away from that, we have once again chosen to pay more for pharmaceuticals and more for health care in general. The reason Europeans pay less for pharmaceuticals is that they have socialized medicine, negotiate lower prices for them and buy in bulk.
PREVIOUSLY!
Now, I do believe in bringing manufacturing back to the United States — but from countries where workers are being poorly paid and exploited. Not from countries where people are paid fairly and they have, in most cases, better labor laws than we do. Ireland, where, again, many top pharmaceuticals are manufactured, has far stronger labor protections than the US. Their minimum wage is more than twice what ours is ($15.80 in US dollars), they do not have at-will employment and can only be fired for cause, they have four weeks of paid leave and 10 paid holidays a year (30 days total), they can’t work more than 48 hours a week, and they have nine weeks parental leave for each parent during the first two years of a baby’s life.
In addition to the tariffs on pharmaceuticals, Trump also announced 50 percent tariffs on kitchen cabinets and bathroom vanities, a 30 percent tariff on upholstered furniture, and a 25 percent tariff on heavy trucks. For “national security.”
As in favor as I am of bringing back American manufacturing (more specifically, jobs of any kind that pay a living wage) — there were, as of this summer, 400,000 to 500,000 unfilled manufacturing jobs in the United States. It does not make sense to push for more when we do not have the workers around to fill the jobs we already need to be filled — particularly as we’re kicking more and more workers, including those here legally, out of the country.
Not to get conspiratorial, but I absolutely believe a large part of this effort is related to the fact that Trump doesn’t want kids to go to college and wants them to get into fields like manufacturing instead (not that manufacturing jobs don’t require a degree — about a third of them do, but Trump probably doesn’t know that). Why? Because college will brainwash them all into becoming liberals! I also think that’s why the Right is so very excited about the idea of AI taking over white collar jobs.
Anyway — let’s just hope all of the people out there who voted for Trump thinking that he would lower pharmaceutical prices without understanding why our pharmaceutical prices are so high to begin with and what it is that would lower them, are very happy right now.
My favorite kind of pharmaceutical is Tylenol Rapid Release the Epstein Files.
Death Cult.