Donald Trump has threatened to introduce tariffs of up to 200pc on pharmaceutical imports in a bid to force more drugmakers to bring factories to the US.

On Tuesday, the US President said “very, very high” duties could be imposed on medicines imported into the US but that he was considering giving pharmaceutical groups one year “to get their act together.”

Economists have warned that higher tariffs on drugs would also hurt American patients, and that taxpayers would end up having to pay more for US government healthcare schemes.

    • Enoril@jlai.lu
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      1 day ago

      Yeah, and it’s language lock too. I was wondering what is was until i said it in english…

      Why not use the universal way to write it (%) is beyond me?

  • Gates9@sh.itjust.works
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    21 hours ago

    The only way the threat could be more existential is if he was sending Einsatzgruppen to execute people in the streets.

  • ByteJunk@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    This is the work of dementia.

    Push comes to shove, you don’t need to buy a new car, or a new PC or a new smartphone. Even new clothes, or specific foods, you can do without any of those by replacing them or buying 2nd hand or just not having them.

    Medicine is not the same. You cannot afford to “not buy it”, in most cases, without severe or even fatal consequences, so tariffs are absolutely useless.

    Prices will just get shifted to the end user, as they always are. It’s especially egregious when it comes to medication because the prices are already hyperinflated and there’re closely orchestrated monopolies that prevent price competition.

    Good thing TACO.

    • Dultas@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      And if there is no alternative medication to compete with it’s not like the manufacturer has any competition to worry about so why would they care about prices going up.

    • cosmicrookie@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      It may seem so, but I personally think it’s about instability, chaos and unpredictability. I honestly don’t think that he or the administration feel anything towards the people that they hurt. They are doing this because of greed, and to get more power

      • lostlittletimeonthis@lemmynsfw.com
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        21 hours ago

        There two sides to this, the insane one handled by Trump and the sane one from the project 2025 people. It’s like they explained the concept of bringing factories back to the US to Trump and then his little brain just understood tariffs because it puts him in a place of power. The sane side is devalue the dollar enough so you can build stuff in the US without major costs… obviously trump is handling it like a toddler with a hammer

        • cosmicrookie@lemmy.world
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          13 hours ago

          I still don’t get it even though you call it sane.

          To me it sounds like giving your money away to become poor, so that things become expensive to you, just so that you can buy expensive stuff

        • cosmicrookie@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          Yeah i agree. My point is that cruelty is not the reason. Its the tool. I dont think they really care as long as they get more power or money

  • TipRing@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    He will for sure Taco this one. Increasing costs for the health insurance lobby and right-wing alt health idiots will end up with paying triple for their Ivermectin or whatever? That is more heat than taco Trump can take.

  • tempest@lemmy.ca
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    2 days ago

    Is this one of those things where I go and check where most American drugs are made and it’s already the us?

    The actual drug chemistry I thought was not hard manufacturing wise it’s the figuring out what to manufacture that is the expensive part.

    • Lee Duna@lemmy.nzOP
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      2 days ago

      Is this one of those things where I go and check where most American drugs are made and it’s already the us?

      Just by looking at the value of drug imports to the US, most likely

      Britain exports £8.8bn of pharmaceutical products to the United States and is home to some of the world’s largest drug companies including GSK and AstraZeneca.

      Mr Trump’s drug tariffs would be especially punitive for Ireland, which is responsible for 28pc of America’s imported drugs.

      The country, which exports $66bn worth of pharmaceuticals, has 30,000 people currently employed in plants by US drug companies.

      • NABDad@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        Mr Trump’s drug tariffs would be especially punitive for Ireland

        Nowhere close to how punitive it would be for the U.S.

    • ms.lane@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      I don’t think a 200% tariff would even make a dent in in profits for selling Indian pharmaceuticals in US either.

      • ToastedRavioli@midwest.social
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        2 days ago

        Especially considering that foreign pharmaceutical companies wont be paying it?? How do people still not understand that the only people this affects are you and I when we go to buy products?

    • fullsquare@awful.systems
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      2 days ago

      No. Barrels of API (active pharmaceutical ingredient) are mostly hauled from India or China, then formulated into pills or whatever, this goes especially for generic medicines. There is some american manufacture of APIs, but these tend to be on more expensive side (biologicals or small molecule drugs under patent). Inputs for these APIs also tend to be made in India or China

    • cosmicrookie@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      It’s not that he wants american companies to make the medicine in the US. He wants international companies to set up factories in the US. Many of them already have

    • Optional@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      No that would indicate a rational motive. He’s literally deranged. He probably came in with “2000% tariff on woke hairspray!” and the toady collective talked him down to 200% tariff on medicine.