Category: Trump executive order
Trump executive order imposes 100% tariff on brand-name drugs — pharmaceutical industry fires back
President Donald Trump issued an executive order establishing a new tariff on brand-name drugs in order to reduce U.S. reliance on imports.
The Thursday order cited national security concerns to justify the new tariffs, but certain drugs are exempted, including generic drugs and orphan drugs.
A pharmaceutical trade group condemned the order and defended the impacted drug imports.
“I have determined that it is necessary and appropriate to impose a 100 percent ad valorem duty rate on the import of patented pharmaceuticals and associated pharmaceutical ingredients,” the president said in the executive order.
The far lower 15% tariff will apply to drugs from the European Union, Japan, South Korea, or Switzerland and Liechtenstein.
Drugs from the United Kingdom will carry an unspecified rate determined by a U.S.-U.K. agreement negotiated by the president.
“President Trump’s agreement with the United Kingdom is another big step toward ending a system that forces Americans to pay more so others can pay less,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
A pharmaceutical trade group condemned the order and defended the impacted drug imports.
“Tariffs on cutting-edge medicines will increase costs and could jeopardize billions in U.S. investments announced in the last year. Every dollar spent on tariffs is a dollar that can’t be invested in communities across the country,” said PhRMA president and CEO Stephen J. Ubl.
“The innovative biopharmaceutical sector has a robust U.S. manufacturing footprint. In fact, two-thirds of the medicines that are consumed in the U.S. are made in America,” he added.
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“And when innovative medicines or their inputs are sourced from other countries, these products overwhelmingly come from reliable U.S. allies, like Europe and Japan,” Ubl concluded.
In February, the Supreme Court struck down the president’s tariffs that invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. The 6-3 ruling was written by Chief Justice John Roberts.
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Supreme Court will hear arguments for ending birthright citizenship
The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Friday to hear arguments for and against President Donald Trump’s order to end birthright citizenship.
The Trump administration appealed a lower court order that struck down the restrictions in July over a class-action lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of children affected by the policy.
‘We look forward to putting this issue to rest once and for all in the Supreme Court this term.’
Trump issued the Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship executive order on his first day in office of his second term. The order prohibits granting citizenship to persons born in the country to mothers illegally or temporarily in the U.S. and whose father is not a U.S. citizen or a lawful permanent resident.
Opponents of birthright citizenship say it stems from a false reading of the 14th Amendment, which was intended to apply only to former slaves when it was ratified in 1868 after the Civil War.
“Congress has never passed a federal statute that confers birthright citizenship. So it’s not in the Constitution, it’s not in federal law, it’s not in the legislative history, and yet it is being used,” argued BlazeTV host Mark Levin.
“Birthright citizenship is the argument, is the position, is the policy the Democrat Party holds on to because they want monopoly power for all time,” he added, “and they don’t care if it’s foreigners or not.”
Supporters of the policy point to the longstanding precedent of automatically granting citizenship to babies born in America.
“No president can change the 14th Amendment’s fundamental promise of citizenship,” said ACLU legal director Cecillia Wang. “We look forward to putting this issue to rest once and for all in the Supreme Court this term.”
The case will be heard in the spring, and a decision is expected by early summer.
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Others point to the troublesome practice of “citizenship tourism” as justification for the order.
“There is a tourism industry surrounding this whole birthright citizenship. Women come here before they give birth so that they can just give birth here, and then their babies become United States citizens. That’s nuts, and to [Trump’s] point, nobody else does this,” said Sara Gonzales of “Sara Gonzales Unfiltered” on BlazeTV.
The birthright order would not take away citizenship from those who already obtained it before the order went into effect.
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