US President Donald Trump on Thursday announced plans to impose tariffs of up to 100% on branded and patented pharmaceutical imports from 1st October, a move likely to hit Indian drugmakers.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump said: “Starting October 1st, 2025, we will be imposing a 100% tariff on any branded or patented pharmaceutical product, unless a company is building its pharmaceutical manufacturing plant in America.”
He clarified that “IS BUILDING” would mean “breaking ground and/or under construction”. Products would be exempt if domestic production had begun, he added.
Trump also unveiled new duties of 50 percent on kitchen cabinets and bathroom vanities, 30% on upholstered furniture, and 25 percent on heavy trucks, citing what he described as a “large-scale flooding” of imports.
The latest measures could deal a major blow to India’s pharmaceutical industry, which had largely escaped earlier tariff rounds, Forbes India reported. The United States remains a critical market for Indian companies, which supply more than 45 percent of generic drugs and about 15 percent of biosimilars used there.
Trade ties between Washington and New Delhi have already been strained after Trump’s administration imposed 50 percent tariffs on a range of Indian exports.
Separately, Trump signed a petition to impose a USD 100,000 application fee for H-1B visas, a programme heavily used by Indian technology professionals, drawing sharp criticism from the tech industry.
