The Trump trade plan was resurrected late on Thursday, signaling a resumption of the Republican president’s trade war, and the announcement came on the heels of the shock announcement of reciprocal tariffs on virtually every US trading partner globally.
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On his Truth Social platform, Trump stated that “we will be imposing a 100% tariff on any branded or patented pharmaceutical product, unless a company IS BUILDING their Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Plant in America.”
South Korean-based Samsung Biologics was one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in Asia with significant exposure to the US market on Friday.
Australia, which exported pharmaceuticals worth an estimated $1.3 billion to the US in 2024, was critical of Trump’s decision, according to the United Nations Comtrade Database.
Trump mentioned a 25% tariff on “all ‘Heavy (Big) Trucks’ made in other parts of the world” in a separate post to support US manufacturers like Peterbilt, Kenworth, Freightliner, Mack Trucks, and others.
Volvo and Daimler, two foreign companies that compete with these manufacturers in the US market, are from Sweden. In Europe’s after-hours trading, shares of both companies were significantly lower.
Trump claimed that the truck tariffs were “for a number of reasons, but foremost for national security reasons”!
The Trump administration “determined the effects of national security” by starting a Section 232 investigation into truck imports earlier this year, setting the stage for Thursday’s announcement.
A trade law provision called Section 232 gives the president the authority to impose tariffs or other import restrictions when they are perceived as a threat to national security.
Trump also stated that he would impose a 30% tariff on upholstered furniture and a 50% tariff on materials used for home renovations because he claimed foreign buyers were dumping these items into the US market.
Imports, primarily from Asia, made up 60% of all furniture sold, including upholstered furniture and 86 percent of all wood furniture, according to the US International Trade Commission.
In after-hours trading, shares of home furniture manufacturers Wayfair and Williams Sonoma, which rely on imported goods, dropped.
Trump’s administration has already imposed a bare 10% tariff on all nations, with higher individualized tariffs on those that have exported far more than the US.
Trump has also invoked his emergency powers to impose additional tariffs on China and Canada, both of which have trade agreements, citing concerns about fentanyl trafficking and undocumented immigration.
How these new tariffs would be integrated with the current measures was not yet clear.
The US-EU trade agreement, which was reached in July, shields the bloc’s drug exports from tariffs of more than 15%, according to the European Union on Friday.
Trade spokesman Olof Gill claimed that the clear, all-inclusive 15 percent tariff cap for EU exports is “an assurance that no higher tariffs will arise for European economic operators.”
Source: Aljazeera
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