Trump steps up pharma tariff threat

US president Donald Trump’s latest trade tariff pronouncement threatens punitive 100% duties on patented and branded medicines, unless construction has begun on a US production facility. At first glance, this might appear to be a further attempt to coerce multinational drug firms (particularly those based outside the EU, where tariff rates should be capped at 15%) to invest in US manufacturing sites. But that view belies the complexity of the global pharmaceutical industry and its supply chains.