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Swiss pharma sector could face steep US tariffs

Trump: tariffs soon on pharmaceutical products and semiconductor chips too
Trump: tariffs soon on pharmaceutical products and semiconductor chips too Keystone-SDA

According to US President Donald Trump, foreign pharmaceutical players will soon also have to brace themselves for steep tariffs. These would be introduced soon, Trump told journalists on board the presidential aircraft Air Force One.

Trump told reporters on Thursday that tariffs on pharmaceuticals will start coming in “at a level that we haven’t really seen before.”

“We are looking at pharma right now. Pharmaceuticals. It’s a separate category,” he said. “We’ll be announcing that sometime in the near future. It’s under review right now,” he said.

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Trump announced tariffs of 10% on most US imports on Wednesday. However, he is imposing significantly higher tariffs on numerous countries with which the US has a large trade deficit, including Switzerland at 32%. However, some goods, including pharmaceuticals, have been temporarily exempted.

Healthcare stocks fell across the board on Friday. Shares of Sandoz, Novartis, Alcon, Straumann, Lonza Roche and Sonova lost up to 3.8%. Traders pointed to Trump’s latest statements on possible pharmaceutical tariffs. Initially, it had looked as if pharmaceutical products would be spared, which had supported the shares of companies such as Lonza and Novartis on Thursday.

Adapted from German by DeepL/ac

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