Xinhua News Agency, Beijing/New York, October 1st A new round of tariffs or adding a "defeat" to the US economy

Xinhua news agency journalist Chen Stara Liu Yan

The U.S. government's new round of tariff increases will take effect one after another from October 1st, covering medicines, timber, heavy trucks and other fields. International observers believe that this round of tariff increases is under the guise of "national security" and protection of "Made in America", but in fact it "harms others and harms others". While once again impacting the global supply chain, it will not only fail to promote the "return" of the manufacturing industry in the United States, but also further increase the living cost of domestic people.

Tax increase and then expand

In the past week, the U.S. government has intensely announced that it will expand the range of products that are subject to tariffs, including imported drugs, heavy trucks, kitchen cabinets, soft furniture and foreign films.

Among them, for all imported brands or patented drugs or imposing a tariff of up to 100%, will enter into force on the 1st day; for imported wood and wood 10% tariff, for kitchen cabinets, bathroom cabinets, soft furniture 25% tariff, will enter into force on the 14th.

Trump said in the presidential announcement that wood products support many key infrastructure sectors in the United States, and their paralysis or destruction will have a serious impact on the national security of the United States, so new tariff measures will be implemented according to Article 232 of the Trade Expansion Act. According to the statistics of the American Institute for Progressive Policy, before the announcement of this round of tariffs, the tariff measures implemented by the Trump administration had covered nearly one-third of American imports.

In terms of drug tariffs, although the EU and Japan have a trade agreement with the U.S. government, their manufactured medicines are not within the scope of the latest 100% tariff applicable, but still pay a ceiling of 15% tariffs; Britain can not get exemption from the latest tariff because the drug tariff rate has not yet been agreed with the U.S.

¡°Return¡± does not work.

Relying on tariff increases to promote "return" manufacturing? Many experts said that it had no effect.

Taking the pharmaceutical industry involved in the new round of tariff increases as an example, the U.S. government has previously asked pharmaceutical manufacturers to sell at low prices to American consumers and build factories in the United States, with the intention of forcing the pharmaceutical industry to "return" with additional tariffs. However, industry insiders generally said that it is too early to talk about "return".

On the one hand, policy uncertainty keeps many pharmaceutical companies out of sight. For example, the scope of exemption medicines remains vague. Currently, the tariff measures on drugs do not refer to replicants. U.S. Food and Drug Administration data show that replicants account for 90% of U.S. prescription medicines. In addition, the U.S. government does not specify whether pharmaceutical companies that have established factories in the U.S. will be exempted, nor does it specify whether the exemption covers other products manufactured by the company in a third country if the company produces only a single drug in the U.S.

Angel Taravella, head of macroeconomics for Europe at the Oxford Institute of Economics, said the specifics were ¡°far from clear.¡±

On the other hand, the decision to impose tariffs on drugs is too hasty. For pharmaceutical companies, new factories are complex and expensive, and often require multiple regulatory procedures and years of planning. Renata Conti, an associate professor at Boston University¡¯s Castrom School of Business, believes that the current U.S. government term is over or is over when the new manufacturing plant is completed.

Alex Shriver, senior vice president of the American Pharmaceutical Research Institute and Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association, said that imposing additional tariffs will hinder pharmaceutical companies 'plans to invest in the United States, because companies' tariff spending could have been used to invest in treatment options and drug research and development. manufacturing. The New York Times reported that some small pharmaceutical companies may decide to withdraw from the U.S. market or sell product lines due to their inability to transfer production to the United States, thereby affecting the supply of some drugs to the United States.

People pay the cost

Additional tariffs are pushing up domestic inflation in the United States, which has become the mainstream consensus of the U.S. public opinion and research institutions. Industry insiders worry that the new round of tariffs will generate cost pressure or further spread to U.S. consumers.

Earlier in April, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said that imports of wood, wood and its derivatives do not pose a national security risk, and the tariffs would instead "increase the cost of U.S. enterprises and housing construction".The New York Times said tariffs on furniture and kitchen cabinets could put pressure on U.S. consumers, home buyers and builders, which are in the economic sector that the Trump administration intends to boost growth.

Natalie Moore, general director of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations, said tariffs on medicines would raise costs and disrupt the supply chain, "hindering patients from accessing life-saving medicines."Allen Kesselheim, a professor of medicine at Harvard University Medical School, believes that in his view, tariffs are fundamentally "taxes on patients."

In addition, observers believe that a new round of tariff policies may add additional burdens to existing trade agreements, and the continued uncertainty has caused dissatisfaction among other countries. Simon Ivanit, a professor at the Business School of the International Institute for Management Development in Switzerland, said: "Any agreement reached with the Trump administration is never really completed." Adam Batlin, a scholar at the Center for Economic Performance Research at the London School of Economics, said that economies with large drug exports to the United States, such as India, Switzerland and some EU countries, may have a significant decline in their competitiveness in the pharmaceutical field.