Pharmaceutical Tariffs: Potential Impacts And The Need For Vulnerability Assessments

The Trump Administration has implemented or proposed a broad range of tariffs, including on pharmaceuticals. These tariffs are intended to serve as a bargaining chip with other countries, promote domestic industry, reshape trade relationships, and address geopolitical risks, among other goals. Some of these goals are relevant to pharmaceuticals; for example, geographic concentration of production in critical portions of the pharmaceutical supply chain poses a geopolitical risk that should be addressed. However, applying tariffs broadly to pharmaceuticals or their ingredients is not the best policy option to achieve these goals. Tariffs are likely to create pressure for higher prices and cause unintended consequences, such as increased drug shortages of generic medicines with fragile supply chains that will affect...