����vlog

President Donald Trump says a 100% tariff on some foreign-made pharmaceuticals will take effect on Oct. 1. Many have raised concerns that import taxes on pharmaceuticals will raise prescription drug prices for Americans, but experts predict that the president's latest policy announcement will have a limited impact. On social media Thursday, Trump said the new tariff will apply to "any branded or patented Pharmaceutical Product, unless a Company IS BUILDING their Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Plant in America." He said companies must be "'breaking ground” and/or “under construction.'" to qualify for the exemption. "A lot of companies are moving into the US so they don't have to pay tariffs," Trump told reporters on Friday. Dr. Mariana Socal, an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said the details of implementation remain unclear, so it's hard to say for sure which drugs will be spared from tariffs. "The big question mark here is what will be characterized as a US investment," Socal said. "For the largest pharmaceutical manufacturers, it might not be so hard to demonstrate investments in advancing, expanding, and increasing production capacity in the US. The question is about smaller biotech companies and smaller pharmaceutical firms that are located abroad that don't have a US presence, or for companies that do have a US presence, but will have to document and qualify for an exemption." The White House confirmed on Friday that the 100% tariff taking effect next week will not apply to generic drugs, which account for roughly 90 percent of prescriptions filled in the U.S.Many of the brand-name medications used by Americans are made in European countries. The Trump administration says those products will be subject to a lower, 15% tariff rate, per their recent trade deal with the EU. Diederik Stadig, a health care economist with the financial services firm ING, expects the impact of the president's latest policy announcement will be muted by existing trade agreements and previously announced commitments to expand U.S. manufacturing. "From this particular announcement, we don't feel that the effects will be very significant for the consumer and the industry," Stadig said. "In general, though, tariffs are inflationary, and we think that prices of pharmaceuticals in the US will gradually rise as stocks run out."Alex Schriver, senior vice president of the industry group PhRMA, said in a statement that "most innovative medicines prescribed in America" are already made in the United States. He said companies continue to announce new U.S. investments because of the president's "pro-growth tax and regulatory policies.""Tariffs risk those plans because every dollar spent on tariffs is a dollar that cannot be invested in American manufacturing or the development of future treatments and cures," Schriver said. "Medicines have historically been exempt from tariffs because they raise costs and could lead to shortages."