US President Donald Trump has unveiled a fresh round of punishing tariffs on a broad range of imported goods, including 100 per cent duties on branded drugs and 25 per cent levies on heavy-duty trucks.
The latest salvo, which Trump said was to protect the US manufacturing industry and national security, follows sweeping duties on trading partners of up to 50 per cent and other targeted levies on imported products such as steel.
The barrage has cast a pall over global growth and paralysed business decision-making around the world, while the Federal Reserve has said it is also contributing to higher consumer prices in America.
Trump’s latest announcements on Truth Social did not mention whether the new levies would stack on top of existing national tariffs.
But recently struck trade deals with Japan, the EU, and the United Kingdom include provisions that cap tariffs for specific products such as pharmaceuticals.
Tokyo said it was analysing the potential impact of the new measures, which Canberra called “unfair” and “unjustified”.
Trump also followed through on a pledge to “bring back” America’s furniture business, saying he would start charging a 50 per cent tariff on imported kitchen cabinets and bathroom vanities and a 30 per cent tariff on upholstered furniture.
All the new duties take effect from October 1.
“The reason for this is the large scale ‘FLOODING’ of these products into the United States by other outside Countries,” Trump said on Thursday.
Stocks of pharmaceutical companies across Asia fell as investors reacted to the news, with Australia’s CSL hitting a six-year low, Japan’s Sumitomo Pharma tumbling more than three per cent and pharmaceutical indices in Hong Kong and India down more than one per cent.
The new actions are seen as part of the Trump administration’s shift to better-established legal authorities for its tariff actions, given the risks associated with a case before the Supreme Court on the legality of his sweeping global tariffs.
The new 100 per cent tariff on any branded or patented pharmaceutical product will apply to all imports unless the company has already broken ground on building a manufacturing plant in the United States, Trump said.
The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), an industry group, said companies “continue to announce hundreds of billions in new US investments. Tariffs risk those plans.”
The Trump administration has opened a dozen probes into the national security ramifications of imports such as planes, semiconductors and critical minerals to form the basis of new tariffs.
Trump has made the levies a key foreign policy tool, using them to renegotiate trade deals, extract concessions and exert political pressure on other countries.
His administration has played down the impact on consumer prices and touted tariffs as a significant revenue source, claiming Washington could collect $US300 billion ($A459 billion) by the end of the year.
Some economies that have already struck deals might get a reprieve on the latest duties.
The EU’s deal with the US stipulates it will pay a 15 per cent tariff on goods including pharmaceuticals, while Japan has an agreement that its tariff rates will not exceed others including the EU.
In Australia, Health Minister Mark Butler told reporters the government was working to understand the implications of the new “unfair, unjustified tariffs after 20 years of free trade”.
More than half of the $US85.6 billion in ingredients used in medicines consumed in the United States are manufactured in the US, with the remainder from Europe and other US allies, the PhRMA said.
Furniture imports to the United States hit $US25.5 billion in 2024, up seven per cent from the previous year.
About 60 per cent of those imports came from Vietnam and China, according to Furniture Today, a trade publication.
Higher tariffs on commercial vehicles could put pressure on transportation costs just as Trump has vowed to reduce inflation, especially on consumer goods such as groceries.
The US Chamber of Commerce earlier urged the department not to impose new truck tariffs, noting the top five import sources were Mexico, Canada, Japan, Germany, and Finland, “all of which are allies or close partners of the United States posing no threat to US national security”.
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