Trump to place import taxes on drugs, home furnishings and heavy trucks : NPR
The containers are stacked on a loading terminal in Frankfurt, Germany, September 9, 2025.
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Michael Probst / AP
Washington – President Donald Trump said Thursday that he would put 100% import taxes on pharmaceutical drugs, 50% on kitchen cabinets and bathroom vanities, 30% on padded furniture and 25% on heavy trucks from October 1.
Articles on his social media site have shown that Trump’s dedication to prices has not ended with commercial executives and import taxes that were launched in August, the reflection of the president’s confidence that taxes will help reduce the government’s budget deficit while increasing national manufacturing.
Although Trump did not provide a legal justification for the prices, he seemed to extend the limits of his role as commander -in -chief by declaring on Truth Social that taxes on the kitchen cabinets and imported sofas were necessary “for national security and other reasons”.
Under the 1962 law on the expansion of exchanges, the administration launched an investigation under article 232 in April on the national security impacts of pharmaceutical imports of drugs and trucks. The trade department launched a 232 survey on wood and wood in March, although it is not clear if the prices of furniture result from it.
The prices are another dose of uncertainty for the American economy with a solid stock market, but a weakening of jobs of jobs and high inflation. These new import taxes could move to consumers in the form of higher price and mitigate hiring, a process that economic data already suggests.
“We have started to see the prices of goods showing up in higher inflation,” warned the president of the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell during a recent press conference, adding that higher costs for goods represent “most” or potentially “of the increase in inflation levels this year.
The president forced Powell to resign, arguing that the Fed should reduce its benchmark interest rates more aggressively because inflation is no longer a concern. FED officials remained cautious about rate drops due to the uncertainty created by prices.
Trump said on Truth Social that pharmaceutical rates would not apply to companies that build manufacturing factories in the United States, which he has defined as “rupture”, to be “under construction”. We did not know how prices would apply to companies that already have factories in the United States
In 2024, America imported nearly $ 233 billion in pharmaceutical and medicinal products, according to the census office. The prospect of overtaking prices for certain drugs could send shock waves to voters as health expenses, as well as the costs of Medicare and Medicaid, potentially increase.
The announcement of pharmaceutical drugs was shocking because Trump previously suggested that the prices would gradually be gradually over time so that companies had time to build factories and move production. On CNBC in August, Trump said that he would start by charging a “small price” on pharmaceutical products and would increase the rate for one year or more to 150% and even 250%.
According to the White House, the threat of prices earlier this year has contributed to many major pharmaceutical companies, notably Johnson & Johnson, Astrazeneca, Roche, Bristol Myers Squibb and Eli Lilly, among others, to announce investments in American production.
Pascal Chan, vice-president of strategic policies and supply chains in the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, warned that prices could harm Americans’ health with “immediate price increases, tense insurance systems, hospital shortages and the real risk of rationing or giving up essential drugs.”
The new tariffs on the cabinets could further increase costs for house manufacturers at a time when many people seeking to buy a feeling of house at a reduced price by mixing housing shortages and high mortgage rates. The National Association of Real Estate Agents said Thursday that there were signs of prices, because the sales lists increased by 11.7% in August a year ago, but the median price of an existing house was $ 422,600.
Trump said heavy foreign manufacturing trucks and the parts are injuring national producers who must be defended.
“Large truck companies manufacturers, such as Peterbilt, Kenworth, Freightliner, Mack Trucks and others, will be protected from the assault on external interruptions,” said Trump.
Trump has long argued that prices are the key to forcing companies to invest more in national factories. He rejected the fears that importers simply transmit a large part of the cost of taxes to consumers and businesses in the form of higher prices.
His wider prices of countries by country have relied on the declaration of an economic emergency based on a law of 1977, an increase in drastic taxes which, according to two federal courts, exceeded the authority of Trump as president. The Supreme Court should hear the case in November.
The president continues to claim that inflation is no longer a challenge for the American economy, despite the evidence of the contrary. The consumer price index increased by 2.9% in the last 12 months, against an annual rate of 2.3% in April, when Trump launched a set of import taxes for the first time.
There is also no evidence that prices create factory jobs or more construction of manufacturing facilities. Since April, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has indicated that the manufacturers had cut 42,000 jobs and that the manufacturers have decreased by 8,000.
“There is no inflation,” Trump told journalists on Thursday. “We have incredible success.”
However, Trump also admitted that his prices against China had injured American farmers, who lost soy sales. The president promised separately Thursday to divert the revenues of prices to farmers injured by the conflict, just as he did during his first mandate in 2018 and 2019, when his prices led to reprisals against the agricultural sector.
