A new tariff on imported medication
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Oh, and you thought we were done with tariffs for a little while. From Marketplace, I'm Sari Beneshour, in for David Brancaccio.
What new tariffs on imported medications did President Trump sign?
President Trump signed an executive order threatening new tariffs on imported medications. They could be as high as 100%. The president also overhauled how steel, aluminum, and copper tariffs are collected.
Marketplace's Nova Sappho has more. The new tariffs on patented drugs come with lots of exceptions. Drugmakers that reach pricing deals with the Trump administration or are at minimum building manufacturing facilities in the U.S. can avoid the levies or pay only 20%. Existing trade deals with countries including the U.K. and those in the E.U. mean lower tariffs for drugmakers there. As for the metal tariffs, changes are said to be focused on simplifying how they're collected and to combat cheating. 50% tariffs will be eliminated for products that contain small amounts of aluminum, steel, or copper. They'll come down to 25% for most other products, such as household appliances. But they'll now be assessed on the full value of the product, not just of the metal it contains.
In addition, the administration will now calculate levies on imports of the metals themselves based on what they're worth in the U.S. The White House says some importers have been gaming the system with artificially low prices charged abroad. I'm Novosafo for Marketplace.
The economy added 178,000 new jobs in March, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced just a few minutes ago. The unemployment rate ticked down a notch to 4.3 percent. Julia Coronado is on the line to talk about it. She's founder of Macro Policy Perspectives and a professor at UT Austin. Hi, Julia. Hello. How are you?
How do the new tariffs on medications affect drugmakers?
Good. So 178,000 jobs, unemployment rate ticks down. How do we feel about that?
Well, it's a strong report in the headlines, but there's also a lot of noise. We have 178,000 jobs in March after 133,000 job loss in February. So averaging through that, it's a pretty low but positive rate of hiring.
The number of long-term unemployed people is up more than 300,000 in a year. Worrying or no?
Well, yes, it is worrying. We are in what we call a low hire, low fire environment. So for those people who do lose their jobs, it's increasingly difficult to secure a new position. And that's not a sign of strength.
As you kind of mentioned, the number of job gains or losses really for the past year has been just wildly all over the place one month to the next. Same thing with revisions. What does that mean?
It means it reflects a couple of things. One, it reflects that the budgets of the statistical agencies have been slashed. So it's harder for them to collect the data and we get more noise in the data. And it also reflects an economy that is being pretty disrupted. So there's a lot of shifts and changes in the sectors that are driving hiring. And that also adds noise to the data.
Julia Coronado, Macro Policy Perspectives.
What changes were made to steel, aluminum, and copper tariffs?
Thank you so much.
My pleasure.
Have you ever thought to yourself, I should have been a doctor or a chemist or a bartender? Some job you're not doing, but wish you were. My colleague David Brancaccio is exploring the roads not traveled in his series, Business Envy. Today, he talks to Mark Davis, founder of Moment Motors out of Austin, Texas. He and his team convert vintage cars for a price, which is something David thinks he could do.
All right. So I got to find a classic car that I love or maybe owned already. I don't own a classic car, but I'll have to find one. I could bring it to you and you could do what with it?
You want to start with a classic car that you love. And we take them in and we strip out their internal combustion engine drivetrains and we replace it with a brand new electric drivetrain.
And you're not starting from scratch on the electric motor, right? Is it like a modular system that could be used in different cars?
We're a small company, so we're not inventing our own motors or our own battery cells or anything like that. What we're doing is we're piecing together automotive technology from the most modern suppliers we can work with.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:01–0:11
2
What new tariffs on imported medications did President Trump sign?
0:11–2:02
3
How do the new tariffs on medications affect drugmakers?
2:02–3:27
4
What changes were made to steel, aluminum, and copper tariffs?
3:27–7:16
5
What does the March jobs report reveal about the economy?
7:16–7:44
6
How does the unemployment rate impact economic perceptions?
7:44–8:18