Trump mentions Ireland again while discussing pharmaceutical tariffs
James Cox
US president Donald Trump has said he is considering imposing tariffs on pharmaceutical imports in the "not too distant future".
Speaking in the Oval Office, he suggested they would be similar to the 25 per cent rate imposed on the motor industry and steel and aluminium.
Mr Trump referenced Ireland and China as countries which produce drugs and said it is time America started doing so.
He claimed companies are investing trillions of dollars in the US since his tariff announcements, without providing specific figures.
The drug companies are in Ireland.
"We don't make our own drugs, our own pharmaceuticals anymore. The drug companies are in Ireland and they’re in lots of other places — China.
"All I have to do is impose a tariff….We’re going to be doing that.”
He added: "I have a timeline, yeah... in the not too distant future. We're doing it because we want to make our own drugs, we want our own steel and aluminium, lumber, other things, and they're all coming in."
Mr Trump has mentioned US pharmaceutical companies based in Ireland on several occasions.
Speaking earlier, the Tánaiste said Ireland will continue to prepare for the worst when it comes to US tariffs.
The Foreign Affairs Minister said he hopes progress can be made this week by the EU trade negotiator Maros Sefcovic.
Mr Harris met Mr Trump's commerce secretary Howard Lutnick in Washington DC last week.
"Well we'd be foolish not to prepare for an environment in which tariffs exist. Certainly the Irish Government is preparing for that and all of the various eventualities and outcomes.
"Whilst preparing for the worst, we need to continue to try to bring about the best. That's why I very much welcome that Commissioner Sefcovic is in Washington today and is engaging with his counterparts and interlocutors there."
Taoiseach Micheál Martin also discussed pharmaceuticals and negotiations with the US today.
Medicine is key to life and tariffs will increase the costs and that’s the key point, both in America and around the world.
Speaking in Cork on Monday, Mr Martin said the tariffs have brought a lot of “uncertainty”.
“There is an opportunity now for negotiation and I would hope, in that opportunity, that the sectoral issues in pharma and also in semiconductors would form part of that”, the Fianna Fáil leader added.
“In other words, that it would form part of the wider negotiation and the European Commission is also of that mindset, so that they would have a comprehensive settlement between the European Union and the United States.
“It is the largest trading relationship in the world, hugely impactful and it is important that we don’t end up in a situation where undue harm would be caused to people or indeed to the world economy or those specifics sectors.
“Medicine is key to life and tariffs will increase the costs and that’s the key point, both in America and around the world.