The White House did not immediately respond to Fortune’s inquiry on plans to exempt medications from tariffs.
For America’s drug supply, tariffs could make a bad problem worse.
Key players in the pharmaceutical industry fear tariffs will pile onto the factors driving the scarcity. Profit margins for generic drugs are incredibly thin to keep them affordable, meaning some manufacturers could stop producing drugs that are too expensive to make as a result of the increased cost of raw materials, according to John Murphy, president and CEO of trade group Association of Accessible Medicines (AAM). To make matters worse, Murphy said, any hiccups in the supply chain will also likely mean an increase in drug prices for consumers.
“Making a billion-dollar investment in the United States when I don’t even know whether tariffs are going to be there a month from now makes it a really difficult calculus for companies,” Wosińska said.
