LAST UPDATE | 15 Apr

DONALD TRUMP HAS said he is considering imposing US tariffs on pharmaceutical imports in the “not too distant future”.

Speaking in the Oval Office, Trump once again namechecked Ireland among the biggest pharmaceutical exporters, and suggested new tariffs on the industry would be similar to those imposed on automobiles and metals (steel and aluminium).

“We don’t make our own drugs anymore. The drug companies are in Ireland and they’re in lots of other places – China,” Trump told reporters yesterday.

The president said that he aims to boost domestic drug production in the US and intends to implement tariffs as a means to support that goal.

“All I have to do is impose a tariff….We’re going to be doing that,” Trump said.

He added that it will happen in the “not too distant future.”

“We’re doing it because we want to make our own drugs, we want our own steel and aluminium, lumber, other things, and they’re all coming in,” he said.

He claimed companies are investing trillions of dollars in the US since his tariff announcements, without providing specific figures.

Trump has mentioned US pharmaceutical companies based in Ireland on several occasions.

Tariffs on the pharmaceutical industry are of particular concern for the Irish economy, as it accounts for a significant amount of exports to the US (roughly €44 billion in exports).

Speaking on the tariffs, Taoiseach Micheál Martin said he hopes that both the pharmaceutical and semiconductors manufacturing sectors will form part of negotiations between the European Union and the US.

The EU had been set to impose retaliatory tariffs on US goods worth €21 billion from today, but they are now on hold until 14 July to give time for negotiations with Washington. 

Everything now will be on table for US-EU negotiations, Martin said, adding that “everything will be on the table”.

Asked how the EU should respond to American tariffs targeted at pharmaceuticals, he said: “We have to take it step by step.

“I mean, things are getting announced, things change on a weekly basis.

“The sensible thing to do is get this onto a negotiating pathway and to see what emerges from those negotiations.

Tánaiste Simon Harris has that it would be “inappropriate” for the US to hit the pharma sector with tariffs while it was at the same time negotiating with the EU on the trade relationship.

“It would be inappropriate if during that time, the United States was to take further action on a sectoral basis, including towards pharma,” Harris told RTÉ News yesterday.

Speaking this morning, Harris expressed hope that progress can be made in negotiations.

He said that the pharmaceutical industry is “much more interconnected than the Trump administration announcements sometimes suggest”.

“I’d also make the point that these are big global companies, and to be a global company you have to have a footprint outside your home country,” Harris said.

“And of course, the companies that are based here in Ireland aren’t based here for the weather. They’re based here for access to a market of 460 million people across the EU and they do very well financially out of that, and that can only be good for the American economy as well.

“So this is an interconnected, interdependent relationship, and I really hope, if time and space is given to some standards of meaningful talks, that good progress can be made on this.”

Yesterday, the first face-to-face meeting between the EU and US since the White House imposed tariffs took place – EU trade commissioner Maros Sefcovic met with commerce secretary Howard Lutnick and US trade officials in Washington DC.

Sefcovic said “the EU remains constructive and ready for a fair deal,” after the meeting, adding that this deal could include reciprocity through a “zero-for-zero” tariff offer on industrial goods.

He said that “achieving this will require a significant joint effort on both sides”.