President Trump has threatened a 250% tariff on pharmaceuticals in a couple of years, pressuring companies to produce the medications in the U.S. CBS News' Aaron Navarro has more details.

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Donald Trump has signed an order to impose tariffs imports into the U.S. from countries including China, Mexico and Canada.

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President Trump has stated his intention to introduce new tariffs on imported semiconductors and pharmaceuticals, according to an interview with CNBC. The proposed pharmaceutical tariffs would start small but could increase to 150% within a year to a year and a half, and eventually reach 250%. The administration's stated goal is to boost domestic manufacturing of pharmaceuticals. Currently, there are no blanket U.S. tariffs on pharmaceuticals, although a recent trade deal with the European Union introduced a 15% tariff on European pharmaceutical imports, up from zero.

The administration has also launched a Section 232 investigation to assess whether foreign pharmaceutical imports pose a national security threat, a procedural step before imposing broader tariffs. The potential impact on drug prices and availability remains uncertain, as the higher tariffs would not take effect for at least a year. In a separate development, Attorney General Pam Bondi has ordered a grand jury investigation into intelligence related to Russia's involvement in the 2016 U.S. election, though details about the scope and targets of the investigation are not yet clear.

Trump threatens 250% tariff on pharmaceuticals down the line

Now, this morning, President Trump says he will announce new tariffs on semiconductors and chips as soon as next week. This was in an interview with CNBC. He also said he plans to put a tariff on pharmaceuticals. Listen. On pharmaceuticals, we'll be putting an initially small tariff on pharmaceuticals. But in one year, one and a half years maximum, it's going to go to 150% and then it's going to go to 250% because we want pharmaceuticals made in our country. CBS News White House reporter Aaron Navarro can flesh this out for us, joining us from the White House North Lawn there. Good morning, Aaron. This is not the first time the president threatened pharmaceutical tariffs, so what might this mean for people who rely on medication, not just to stay comfortable, but to stay alive? Yeah, Aaron, at least in the long term, it could definitely increase the cost of these prescription drugs, the availability. But I think, I say the long term because President Trump has really put this caveat of at least a year, a year and a half before these tariffs are implemented. He says that this is to allow these pharmaceutical companies more time to physically relocate to the United States for more manufacturing, though that could take multiple years. And it's important to note that right now there aren't any blanket U.S. tariffs on pharmaceuticals. As part of that European Union-United States trade deal last week, there was a 15% tariff specific for pharmaceuticals from Europe, and that is already a pretty dramatic increase from the 0% that it was before. But we've seen the administration take these procedural steps to get to a pharmaceutical tariff sector specific. They launched in April what's known as a Section 232 investigation to determine if imports of pharmaceuticals from foreign countries is a threat to national security. That's kind of just the formal step before a bigger tariff is announced. But given this timeline, we won't really know the specific impacts of these tariffs until a year, a year and a half, when President Trump says it'll skyrocket to at least 150%. Now, in the short term, Aaron, there's one other big headline we've been following this morning, and that's Attorney General Pam Bondi ordering a grand jury investigation into intelligence surrounding Russia's involvement in the 2016 election. But viewers will remember, the Senate, a bipartisan group, already looked into this. So what's new to discover? Yeah, that's something that Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has really been pushing, that essentially there was a, quote, coup, allegedly, that the intelligence community had to, you know, make President Trump and his 2016 campaign look bad, insinuate that they had ties to Russia and colluded with them. Now, we don't know specifically, this ask for a grand jury, some of the details. We don't know what the charges would be, who they are aiming to indict or charge. President Trump was asked about this during a wide-ranging CNBC interview this morning and said, quote, I have nothing to do with it, but added, I will tell you this, they deserve it, went on to make his baseless claims that the 2020 election was rigged. So this has been something that the administration has been putting out there and is now kind of in the hands of the Department of Justice as they take this procedural step to try and elevate the story. Wow. All right. Aaron, thank you very much for that quick update.

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Trump threatens 250% tariff on pharmaceuticals down the line

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