U.S. tariffs on drugs to damage global health governance, experts warn

U.S. President Donald Trump's comments about adding a new tariff on drugs have raised public concerns about drug prices and the safety of the global health system.

"We're going to be announcing very shortly a major tariff on pharmaceuticals," Trump said Tuesday at the National Republican Congressional Committee dinner, although he didn't specify more details.

Experts warn that the new tariff on drugs are likely to drive the price of medicines higher and exacerbate drug shortages before forcing more manufacturing companies to relocate to the country.

Lower access to medicines

Industry executives and drug pricing experts say tariffs increase the risk of shortages of widely used, cheap generic medicines, such as antibiotics, which makers say they can't afford to continue producing with the added costs, according to Reuters.

Tariffs could also eat into the margins of expensive brand name pharmaceuticals and biotech medicines, and drugmakers say that could leave them with less money to invest in research and development for future medicines, Reuters reported.

On April 5, the China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Medicines and Health Products noted that "the vast majority" of medical consumables, devices, and rehabilitation products now face tariffs, with some items bearing exorbitant cumulative rates due to previous U.S. levies.

The chamber condemned the measures for threatening global healthcare equity, stressing that they undermine pharmaceutical production and supply chain stability, and jeopardize medical access for low-income populations.

Weaker response to public health crises

Xu Ming, from Peking University's Institute for Global Health and Development, warned that Trump's tariff-driven trade war could disrupt the global public welfare market, where key buyers like UN agencies and NGOs rely on low-cost procurement for donations, according to the 21st Century Business Herald.

He also noted that rising raw material prices and strained international relations from the trade war could hinder multilateral cooperation on issues like pandemics and climate change.

Trump withdrew the U.S. from the World Health Organization (WHO) on his first day back in the White House, which drew criticism from public health experts.

Xu said the move exposed vulnerabilities in global health systems and called for urgent reforms to make international aid systems more resilient and sustainable.

In a recent discussion on the pressures on global health since Trump's return to the White House, Zhou Qing'an, director of the Center for Global Development and Health Communication Research at Tsinghua University, said that the recent damages to the global aid mechanism and the global public health governance system will take a very long time to rebuild.

Regional impact

The U.S. relies heavily on European pharmaceuticals, with annual sales reaching tens of billions of dollars. Analysts said that the U.S.' new tariff on imported drugs may seriously affect the European pharmaceutical industry. 

European media reports indicate that a trade war in this sector could reduce patients' access to essential medicines, raise healthcare costs, and lead to production cuts and layoffs at some European companies.