Trump Administration Readies New Tariffs on Select Drugmakers, Bloomberg News Reports

The Trump administration is set to announce tariffs as soon as Thursday on drugmakers that have not struck deals guaranteeing low prices in the U.S., Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the plan.

President Donald Trump has been threatening tariffs on the pharmaceutical industry for the past year that could range from 100% to 200% in an effort to force pharmaceutical companies to return manufacturing to the US and to cut drug prices for American patients. Most of the major drug companies, including Pfizer Inc. and Eli Lilly & Co., have struck deals with the White House in exchange for a three-year reprieve from any such levies.

The new tariffs stem from an investigation under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act. Companies that don’t have agreements and aren’t in negotiations with the administration will be subject to 100% tariffs, said the people, who requested anonymity to discuss matters that aren’t public.

The plans aren’t yet final and could still change, the people said. There could also be exemptions for certain medicines and disease categories, they said.

The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump has been talking about the US drug supply since he began rolling out his tariff agenda, wringing concessions from pharmaceutical companies on domestic manufacturing and the cost of medicine in exchange for promises of tariff relief. The industry was spared from the global levies he imposed in 2025, which were struck down by the Supreme Court in February, after the administration negotiated one-off deals with more than a dozen individual companies.