WASHINGTON, April 2 - The White House announced a new set of trade proclamations that impose steep tariffs on select branded pharmaceuticals and overhaul duties on products containing steel, aluminum and copper. The moves arrive as the administration attempts to rebuild parts of a tariff regime that a court and the Supreme Court effectively dismantled earlier this year.
In a proclamation reporting the results of a national security probe into pharmaceutical imports, the administration set a framework intended to force foreign patent-holding drugmakers to negotiate price concessions with the U.S. government and to shift production into the United States. Under the proclamation, foreign manufacturers must both reach pricing agreements with the U.S. government and commit to relocating production to the United States to be wholly exempt from new duties.
Companies that only relocate some production to U.S. soil would face a 20% tariff, according to an administration official, while those that neither negotiate price reductions nor move manufacturing would be subject to a 100% duty. The proclamation does not make these levies universal: branded drug tariffs would be capped at 15% for imports covered by trade agreements with the European Union, Japan, South Korea and Switzerland.
The White House also announced a separate bilateral agreement with Britain on pharmaceuticals that secures a zero-tariff treatment for British-made drugs for at least three years while Britain expands U.S.-based production. For the broader tariff schedule, large pharmaceutical companies would have 120 days to comply before 100% tariff rates would apply, and smaller producers would have 180 days, the administration official said.
Alongside the pharmaceutical measures, the president issued a metals tariff proclamation that simplifies and narrows the scope of duties applied to derivative goods containing steel, aluminum and copper. For many such derivative products, the duty rate will be halved to 25%, while items with minimal metal content will no longer carry the levies. Commodity imports of raw steel, aluminum and copper remain subject to a 50% duty.
Crucially, the administration said it will now calculate that 50% duty based on the U.S. sales price of the metals rather than the declared import value. The administration official said importers had frequently declared artificially low values at entry, complicating enforcement and blunting the tariff's bite when determined on declared import value.
The metals changes were described as an attempt to simplify an intricate regime that required importers and customs officials to ascertain the metal-content share of thousands of derivative goods, from tractor parts to stainless steel sinks and railroad equipment. Under the new rules, items with less than 15% metals by weight - for example, a dental-floss container with a tiny steel cutter blade - will no longer be subject to the levies.
The White House additionally said it would reduce duties on certain metal-intensive industrial and power-grid equipment to 15% from 50% through 2027 to help support a broad industrial and data-center build-out. The change in the metals tariffs was set to take effect just after midnight on Monday, the proclamation said.
The policy package arrives on the one-year anniversary of the administration's so-called "Liberation Day" announcements, under which reciprocal tariffs ranging from 10% to 50% were asserted on imports from a wide array of trading partners. Those tariff actions, issued under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, sparked months of international retaliation, bilateral negotiations and litigation from importers.
In February, the U.S. Supreme Court declared the IEEPA-based tariffs illegal, a ruling that prompted a lower court order directing U.S. Customs and Border Protection to craft a plan to refund roughly $166 billion in tariffs collected over the prior year.
Defending the prior IEEPA-based approach, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer called the earlier tariff program a "reset button" for a broken global trading system and credited it with prompting companies to build new factories in the United States and extracting concessions for U.S. exports. "The best is yet to come as President Trump’s tariff program incentivizes domestic production, raises workers’ wages, and reinforces our critical supply chains," Greer said in a statement released by the administration.
The new proclamations drew immediate reaction from business groups and industry associations, highlighting tensions over potential price impacts and industrial policy trade-offs. Some business leaders warned that the measures could further raise costs for consumers and U.S. manufacturers already facing elevated input prices.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce noted that a full year of higher tariffs had already raised prices and added cost pressure across many industries. Neil Bradley, the Chamber's policy chief, said in a statement that "a new, complex tariff scheme on pharmaceuticals will raise healthcare costs for American families." Bradley added that changes to metals tariffs "will likewise raise prices for consumers and add pressure to manufacturing, construction, and energy - industries that are already reeling from higher input costs and ongoing supply-chain challenges."
Steel industry officials offered a more favorable assessment of the metals adjustments. Philip Bell, president of the Steel Manufacturers Association, praised the administration for "right-sizing" the list of metals derivatives and updating the valuation methodology, saying those steps help ensure tariffs remain precisely targeted to support the revitalization of the American steel industry without undermining broader economic goals.
Several critics of the new measures flagged another dynamic the proclamations do not alter: energy prices have recently risen as a result of the war on Iran, an increase that has already placed cost pressure on consumers and industries that are sensitive to energy and commodity price swings. Business groups said that adding new tariff-induced input costs could compound those pressures.
As implemented, the package attempts to thread a narrow policy path - maintaining high commodity-level duties, simplifying derivative-product levies, and using tariff policy to extract production commitments and price concessions from foreign manufacturers. The administration's timetable for compliance and its selective exemptions under existing trade deals create differentiated cost outcomes across trading partners and sectors.
How companies respond in the short run - whether by negotiating pricing agreements, accelerating U.S. investment in production, or paying the new levies - will determine the immediate effects on supply chains, manufacturing margins and consumer prices. The proclamations set clear deadlines and thresholds, but the eventual economic impact will depend on corporate decisions that have yet to play out.