President Donald Trump on Thursday launched a new tariff offensive centered on pharmaceuticals and industrial metals, replacing the broad import duties struck down by the Supreme Court in February.
The pharmaceutical piece is the most aggressive. Under the White House proclamation, patented pharmaceuticals and associated ingredients are subject to a 100% ad valorem duty unless companies strike pricing and onshoring deals with the US government or qualify for reduced-country treatment.
Companies with approved plans to move production onshore face a 20% tariff instead, but that lower rate rises to 100% four years after the proclamation. Generic drugs and biosimilars were excluded for now.
The proclamation says that, as of 2025, about 53% of patented pharmaceutical products distributed in the US were produced outside the country, while only 15% of patented APIs by volume for the US market were produced domestically. The White House argued that this import dependence threatens national security and public health resilience in a geopolitical or economic disruption.
Reuters reported that branded drug tariffs are capped at 15% for products from the EU, Japan, South Korea, and Switzerland under existing trade arrangements, while the White House proclamation sets the UK at 10%, with a path to zero if a future US-UK pharmaceutical pricing agreement requires it.
Products qualifying as orphan drugs, nuclear medicines, plasma-derived therapies, fertility treatments, cell and gene therapies, antibody drug conjugates, animal health products, and certain emergency-use medicines may also receive zero-tariff treatment.
Large pharmaceutical companies get 120 days before the 100% rate takes effect, while smaller producers get 180 days. The White House also directed the Commerce and Health and Human Services departments to pursue agreements and report progress within 90 days.
On industrial metals, Trump kept the 50% duty on core steel, aluminum, and certain copper imports, but halved tariffs to 25% on many derivative products made with those metals. The revised regime also drops tariffs entirely for some products with minimal metals exposure and cuts duties on certain industrial and power-grid equipment to 15% through 2027 to support factory, infrastructure, and data-center buildouts.
The White House proclamation sets implementation for 12:01 a.m. EDT on April 6, 2026.
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Again, it carved specific exceptions: 15% treatment for qualifying UK derivative articles and 10% treatment for derivatives made entirely with US-origin smelted, cast, melted, or poured metal inputs.
The administration will also reportedly now apply tariffs on many metal products based on the US sales price rather than the declared import value, which officials said had often been artificially understated. The White House framed the overhaul as a way to tighten collection, simplify compliance, and stop underreporting across thousands of derivative items ranging from tractor parts to sinks and railroad equipment.
Reuters reported the administration is trying in part to rebuild duties lost after the Supreme Court invalidated Trump’s broader IEEPA tariffs in February, a ruling that triggered a lower-court refund process covering about $166 billion in tariffs collected over the prior year.
The US Chamber of Commerce warned the new pharmaceutical regime would raise healthcare costs for American families and that metals changes would push up prices across manufacturing, construction, and energy. Meanwhile, the Steel Manufacturers Association backed the metals revision, saying the administration had “right-sizing” the derivatives list and improved valuation methodology to keep tariffs more precisely targeted.
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