I n a recent tweet, US President Donald Trump announced that, beginning 1 October 2025, 100 per cent tariffs would apply to branded or patented pharmaceutical imports into the US—unless the foreign company is actively building a drug-manufacturing facility on American soil. On paper, this is presented as a nationalist industrial policy: “Produce in America or pay,” with the intention to bring supply chains home. But in reality, it is less an incentive and more a blunt instrument of protectionism.

India, called the “pharmacy of the world”, producing around 20 per cent of all generic medicines globally, supplying nearly 60 per cent of vaccines, and housing the largest number of US FDA-approved manufacturing sites outside the United States, as noted by the India Brand Equity Foundation, mus

See Full Page