Latest / The Front / Pharma giants brace for Trump tariff pain

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Pharma giants brace for Trump tariff pain · The Front

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm christinaming it.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: It's Thursday, July tenth, twenty twenty five. Prejudicial and suppressed
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: material from Aaron Patterson's ten week murder trial was plastered
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  Speaker 1: all over social media platforms like Facebook, breaching strict rules
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: designed to preserve the integrity of the proceedings. That story
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: from John Ferguson, the journalist who broke the story of
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  Speaker 1: the deadly Leo Gather lunch back in twenty twenty three,
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  Speaker 1: is live now at the Australian dot com dot au.
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  Speaker 1: Donald Trump is back at it again with the tariffs,
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  Speaker 1: and this time he says he'll impose import duties on
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  Speaker 1: copper and pharmaceutical products. It means the Albanzi government is
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  Speaker 1: again under pressure to make a deal. Today, Economics correspondent
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: Matthew Cranston unpacks the latest from Donald Trump's trade war.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Remember this, my.
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  Speaker 2: Fellow Americans, This is Liberation Day waiting for a long time.
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  Speaker 1: At the start of April, President Donald Trump announced the
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  Speaker 1: United States would impose sweeping tariffs on exporters around the globe.
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  Speaker 2: In a few moments, I will sign a historic executive
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  Speaker 2: order instituting reciprocal tariffs on countries throughout the world. Reciprocal.
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  Speaker 2: That means they do it to us, and we do
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  Speaker 2: it to them. Very simple. Can't get any simpler than that.
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  Speaker 1: It meant anyone selling goods to the United States would
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  Speaker 1: be subject to a ten percent baseline import duty, with
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  Speaker 1: higher tariffs imposed on countries who carried the biggest trade
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  Speaker 1: deficits with the US.
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  Speaker 2: Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia. Oh, look at Cambodia ninety six percent.
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  Speaker 2: We're going to bring it down to forty and animde
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  Speaker 2: a fortune with the United States of America.
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  Speaker 1: Economists panicked.
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  Speaker 3: The economic fallout from President Trump's tariffs has heightened concerns
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  Speaker 3: of a recession at a global trade war.
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  Speaker 4: Financial markets plummeted today the Australian share market went into meltdown.
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  Speaker 4: Twenty five billion dollars wiped off the ASX and no
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  Speaker 4: one was spared war.
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  Speaker 5: Bizarre still, the remote Australian territory of hurd Island also
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  Speaker 5: tariffed ten percent. Those tariffs may be hard to collect, though,
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  Speaker 5: because its main inhabitants are penguins.
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  Speaker 1: Now, the deal maker in chief says he'll hit us
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  Speaker 1: where it really hurts right in our four point five
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  Speaker 1: billion dollar pharmaceutical export sector.
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  Speaker 3: And we'll be announcing something very soon on pharmaceuticals. We're
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  Speaker 3: going to give people about a year a year and
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  Speaker 3: a half to come in and after that they're going
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  Speaker 3: to be tariffed because they have to bring the pharmaceuticals
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  Speaker 3: into the country, the drugs and other things into the country.
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  Speaker 3: They're going to be tariffed at a very very high rate,
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  Speaker 3: like two hundred percent. Will give them a certain period
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  Speaker 3: of time to get their act together.
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  Speaker 5: But they're rolling here.
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  Speaker 1: The pharmaceutical industry employees about seventy thousand people in Australia.
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  Speaker 1: Last year, Australian manufacturers exported just over two point two
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  Speaker 1: billion dollars in pharmaceutical goods to the United States. That's
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  Speaker 1: a bit under half of the sector's total export value.
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  Speaker 1: So should we be worried.
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  Speaker 6: Well, most of the people that analyze all this stuff
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  Speaker 6: have said it's going to be a big cost burden
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  Speaker 6: and a big hit to the economic activity that the
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  Speaker 6: pharmaceutical industry brings.
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  Speaker 1: Matthew Cranston is the Australian's economics correspondent.
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  Speaker 6: Barclays, for example, have said that they think it'll hit
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  Speaker 6: about one point eight billion dollars worth of economic activity
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  Speaker 6: related to pharmaceutical manufacturing in Australia, So that's that's pretty substantial.
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  Speaker 6: I suppose in the context of the broader economy, we've
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  Speaker 6: got a two tillion dollar economy in Australia, so maybe
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  Speaker 6: it's not that big, but you know, if you talk
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  Speaker 6: to people in the industry, that's going to seriously affect them.
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  Speaker 6: And of course there's lots of pharmaceutical manufacturing throughout Southeast Asia,
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  Speaker 6: so that's going to be mocked and Australia does provide
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  Speaker 6: a lot of inputs that go to some of those manufacturers.
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  Speaker 1: Trump's announcement, if you can call it, that was made
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  Speaker 1: in the middle of an almost two hour cabinet meeting
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  Speaker 1: where everything from the floods in Texas to America's bombing
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  Speaker 1: of Iran was on the table. But can you call
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  Speaker 1: it unexpected, It's.
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  Speaker 6: A difficult question to answer. The reason why is because
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  Speaker 6: everything Donald Trump does is unexpected. You just don't know
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  Speaker 6: where he's going to go next, right, So in that regard, yes,
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  Speaker 6: it's unexpected. This is what is creating problems for equities markets,
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  Speaker 6: bond markets, and even just businesses that want to work
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  Speaker 6: out how much money to put in new investment, how
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  Speaker 6: many more employees to bring on to their business. They
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  Speaker 6: don't know where this is going to go, so they
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  Speaker 6: can't work out what the cost of their inputs are
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  Speaker 6: going to be. They don't know what the demand of
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  Speaker 6: it's going to be. So there's all these things that
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  Speaker 6: have to play out so many different factors, and all
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  Speaker 6: that uncertainty creates anks and that's why you see such
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  Speaker 6: a huge amount of volatility in all these different financial markets.
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  Speaker 1: And what about the opportunities.
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  Speaker 6: I have been speaking to someone who's very senior in
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  Speaker 6: pharmaceutical land, that being Brian McNamee. He's the chairman of CSL,
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  Speaker 6: the biggest company on the AX, and he has said, yes,
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  Speaker 6: obviously it's going to hurt CSL a bit, but he says, actually,
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  Speaker 6: when you think this through on an economic basis, Australia
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  Speaker 6: does gain a lot from America in its innovation of
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  Speaker 6: drugs and our pharmaceutical benefits scheme is constructed to minimize
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  Speaker 6: the price of all that innovative drug coming to Australia
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  Speaker 6: and it can actually the pricing mechanisms prevent other drugs
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  Speaker 6: coming from America into Australia. So he's not saying that, yeah, yeah,
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  Speaker 6: tear it down. He's not saying that the US is
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  Speaker 6: even trying to tear it down. He's saying that Australia
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  Speaker 6: gets enormous benefit from America, and maybe we can adjust
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  Speaker 6: our PBS to make it more efficient to accelerate more
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  Speaker 6: drugs coming in from overseas and in some ways also
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  Speaker 6: reflect a bit of the costs that America bears in
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  Speaker 6: creating all these drugs and providing it to the rest
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  Speaker 6: of the world. So, you know, that's a controversial from Australian.
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  Speaker 6: He's not being nationalistic here, but he's just saying, look,
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  Speaker 6: there is a benefit that we get that we're not
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  Speaker 6: fully paying for. And he says it's not unreasonable of
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  Speaker 6: the Americans to ask this, and he likens it also
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  Speaker 6: to how we gain a lot from the innovation in
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  Speaker 6: US defense.
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  Speaker 1: On Tuesday morning, Donald Trump shared the correspondence he sent
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  Speaker 1: to fourteen heads of state in Thailand, Cambodia, Belgrade, Tunisia
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  Speaker 1: and others, notifying them that because no deal had been
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  Speaker 1: reached since Liberation Day, a slew of country specific tariffs
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  Speaker 1: would come into effect on August one puglist.
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  Speaker 3: First, they pay, and everybody pays.
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  Speaker 2: Everybody has to pay, and the incentive is that they
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  Speaker 2: have the right to deal in the United States.
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  Speaker 3: If they don't want to, they don't have to pay,
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  Speaker 3: and they don't.
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  Speaker 6: Have to deal here, Matt.
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  Speaker 1: The deadline for the nations affected by the Liberation Day
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  Speaker 1: tariffs to make a deal with the United States has
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  Speaker 1: been paused a couple of times since April two, though
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  Speaker 1: Donald Trump is adamant this is their last chance. What
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  Speaker 1: does that tell you about how committed Donald Trump is
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  Speaker 1: to this new pharmaceutical tariff, which he says won't be
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  Speaker 1: implemented for a year or so to give producers time
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  Speaker 1: to adjust their supply chains. Do you think it'll actually happen?
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  Speaker 6: If I knew that, I could probably make a lot
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  Speaker 6: of money. But if you come back to the rationale
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  Speaker 6: for why he's doing it, he thinks it's two reasons right. One,
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  Speaker 6: he actually thinks there is a national security threat to
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  Speaker 6: some of these industries. That's how he's able to actually
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  Speaker 6: impose these tariffs. China or India or some other country
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  Speaker 6: that may be seen as an adversary has got a
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  Speaker 6: stranglehold over a certain industry. Whether it's pharmaceuticals, whether it's
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  Speaker 6: critical minerals, whether it's anything else. And he's saying, look,
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  Speaker 6: America needs to be more self reliant on this, And look,
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  Speaker 6: a lot of economists think part of that is right.
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  Speaker 6: Even in Australia, we think there is a little bit
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  Speaker 6: of truth to this. The second rationale is that he
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  Speaker 6: needs to raise money to pay for these big tax
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  Speaker 6: cuts that he's just passed under the big beautiful bill
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  Speaker 6: in America. You know, he needs to raise people, say
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  Speaker 6: it's about three hundred billion a year or something like this.
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  Speaker 6: Whether or not he can get that but depends on
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  Speaker 6: how strong he goes on all these starts. And I
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  Speaker 6: think that he needs to raise money to help pay
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  Speaker 6: for the tax cuts, to help him push through more
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  Speaker 6: economic activity and make sure that by the time the
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  Speaker 6: midterm elections come up that he's got America backla a
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  Speaker 6: solid footing, and that he's got Republicans supporting him and
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  Speaker 6: voting for him.
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  Speaker 1: Coming up. That's not all, folks. Trump's tariffs are also
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  Speaker 1: coming for copper. At Tuesday's White House Cabinet meeting, President
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  Speaker 1: Donald Trump also announced an import duty of fifty percent
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  Speaker 1: would be imposed on copper that new tariff could come
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  Speaker 1: into effect sooner than the proposed two hundred percent pharmaceutical tariff.
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  Speaker 1: Here's Matthew Cranston.
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  Speaker 6: This is a complex one because once again, trying to
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  Speaker 6: predict the price on copper because of the tariff is
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  Speaker 6: a little bit fraud. Some people are saying it'll be neutral.
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  Speaker 6: There are other stronger things that drive the price, and
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  Speaker 6: part of that is the demand for renewable energies. Now,
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  Speaker 6: there's a lot of money being invested in renewable energies
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  Speaker 6: and the one of the essential ingredients of copper. So
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  Speaker 6: if anything, this tariff might create a higher price for it.
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  Speaker 6: And certainly if there's a tariff on it, it might
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  Speaker 6: mean rerouting of trade and supply chain of copper, and
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  Speaker 6: so that can only mean a slightly high price. And
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  Speaker 6: if there's a high price, that means it's going to
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  Speaker 6: be more expensive to create renewable energies. Now, most people
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  Speaker 6: say that they don't think they're deliberately trying to can
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  Speaker 6: renewable energies. What they think they're trying to do is
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  Speaker 6: back to this point about national security. Too much reliance
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  Speaker 6: on copper refinery and critical refinery happens in China America
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  Speaker 6: doesn't want that, so there's a problem there, and if
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  Speaker 6: they get into a war or something, you don't want
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  Speaker 6: to be relying on child for all these critical minerals
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  Speaker 6: that go into important defense equipment and articles. So it's
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  Speaker 6: the tariff. It's going to be hard to work it out,
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  Speaker 6: but one thing you can be sure of is that
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  Speaker 6: there's probably going to be a bit of a slowdown
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  Speaker 6: or renewable energy outputs.
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  Speaker 1: Matthew Cranston is The Australian's economics correspondent. You can read
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  Speaker 1: all the latest from the White House and around the
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  Speaker 1: world anytime at the Australian dot com dot au