President Trump said Tuesday his administration soon would announce “major” tariffs on pharmaceutical, adding to the tariffs he has already imposed on most goods entering the United States from abroad.
“We’re going to be announcing very shortly a major tariff on pharmaceuticals,” Trump said during a speech at the National Republican Congressional Committee.
“And when they hear that, they will leave China. They will leave other places because they have to sell—most of their product is sold here, and they’re going to be opening up their plants all over the place in our country,” he added.
Since 2020, U.S. imports of Chinese pharmaceuticals (defined by the US tariff code to include packaged medicaments, vaccines, blood, organic cultures, bandages, and organs) has grown by 485 percent, going from $2.1 billion in 2020 to $10.3 billion in 2022 according to the Atlantic Council.
The country has streamlined biotech production in the capital of Beijing while cutting costs for production after launching a five-year plan to increase the development of consumer drugs.
Trump’s proposed trade policies aim to hamper China’s pharmaceutical growth by encouraging plants to set up shop in the U.S. due to the onset of high levies.
“What other presidents allow China to get away with is absolutely criminal, but I’m not like the other presidents, and it’s not going to happen under President Trump. It’s just not going to happen,” he told his GOP colleagues on Tuesday.
The leader said China’s retaliation to the tariffs he announced last week has further fueled his plan to slam their supply chain growth.
China announced a 34 percent tariff on U.S. goods last week in response to Trump tariffs imposed on Beijing. This week, each country has added a 50 percent tariff on the other’s goods.
“After all of the abuses they’ve perpetrated, China’s attempting to impose additional unjustified tariffs. Just so you understand, they all got rich because of tariffs, you know. Now when we do it, oh, it’s so terrible. What Trump is doing, it’s so terrible. They got rich,” the president said.
“And not only China, many countries.”