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Time to talk tariffs.
President Donald Trump appears committed to imposing sweeping tariffs on the US’s three biggest trading partners: A 10% tariff on all goods from China went into effect on Feb. 4, and a 25% tariff on goods from Canada and Mexico is “going forward,” Trump said on Monday.
In a fact sheet about the tariffs, the Trump administration cited an “extraordinary threat posed by illegal aliens and drugs,” including fentanyl. China is the biggest source of key ingredients used to make fentanyl, the BBC reports, and most of the drug is brought into the US across the Mexican border. However, crackdowns in China and Mexico in recent years appear to have reduced the flow, experts and officials told NPR, and a January 2025 study found that “tariff-based border control measures are ineffective against fentanyl trafficking.”
Regardless of the potential impact of tariffs on fentanyl smuggling, some healthcare experts warn that they could impact industry finances and patient care.
Hospitals. American Hospital Association President and CEO Richard Pollack, for example, sent a letter to Trump on Feb. 4, urging the administration to exclude medical devices and pharmaceuticals from tariffs.
Pollack wrote that while he supports the president’s efforts to stop illicit drug circulation, he remained “concerned that the approach of using tariffs may inadvertently put others' lives at risk by jeopardizing the availability of vital medications and essential healthcare devices.”
Despite efforts to build up the domestic supply chain (like the Supply Chain Disruption Task Force the Biden administration created in 2021), the letter said that hospitals still rely on both drug ingredients and medications—as well as medical devices and personal protective equipment (PPE) like gloves and masks made in other countries.
“Tariffs, as well as any reaction of the countries on whom such tariffs are imposed, could reduce the availability of these life-saving medications and supplies in the US,” he wrote. “For many patients, even a temporary disruption in their access to these needed medications could put them at significant risk of harm, including death.”
Medications. Pharmaceutical experts are also concerned the tariffs will make it harder to get drug ingredients and medications.
About 30% of active pharmaceutical ingredients used in the US are from China, according to 2023 research from think tank the Atlantic Council.
Caroline Shleifer, founder and CEO of regulatory compliance company RegASK, told Healthcare Brew in a statement that the 10% tariffs on drug ingredients could lead to higher drug costs, cause shortages, and limit research and development budgets, which could delay new medications from coming to market.
“Rising drug prices and shortages could make it more difficult for patients to afford the treatments they need, further limiting access to essential therapies,” she said. “As out-of-pocket costs rise, medication adherence may decline, leading to poorer health outcomes and placing additional strain on public health systems.”
Shachi Gupta, VP of strategy at procurement management software company Oro Labs, said in an emailed statement that the pharmaceutical industry will need to gain a better understanding of the “ripple effect” of price changes resulting from tariffs and find new suppliers. However, she said that finding suppliers would be challenging because they would need to comply with FDA and HIPAA regulations while also hitting cost and data security goals.
“The urgent need to vet new vendors for regulatory adherence, ethical practices, and data governance can overwhelm procurement teams and increase the risk of compliance gaps—potentially slowing down drug development and disrupting patient care,” she said.