Legal Insights and Perspectives for the Healthcare Industry

On a fourth go-around, the Trump administration has issued another set of proposed tariffs on an additional $300 billion of goods related to China, this time adding a range of commercial goods across industries. With respect to healthcare products, this round affects medical devices and their components, certain chemicals and precursors that can be used in pharmaceuticals and dietary supplements, and other FDA-regulated products. The administration continues to try to use tariffs as a means of balancing the trade deficit with China and to bring the Chinese government to the negotiating table on a longstanding set of issues related to intellectual property (IP), cyber, and technology transfer. There are two steps to the tariff process: