Mint Quick Edit | India’s pharma exports are mostly immune but trade logic gets battered
Indian pharmaceutical exporters have little to fear in Trump’s 100% drug tariff. Generics are spared while unique therapeutic products are not very price sensitive. It’s the logic of free trade that takes the real blow.
Only a sliver of India’s pharmaceutical exports to the US, placed at roughly $10.5 billion in 2024-25, appears to face the 100% tariff hurdle likely to be erected this week by American President Donald Trump.
Since the vast bulk of what we export are generic drugs, rather than patented or branded ones, this is not a crisis for our pharma industry. The new tariff’s exact targets await clarity, but unless the term “branded" somehow gets stretched to cover trademark-bearing products that command no premium for intellectual property, which would imply a muddled policy, the impact will be confined to very few Indian companies.
That such firms have been ahead of the pack on innovation is ironic, but global demand for unique offerings should also be relatively price inelastic, which would make it easier for them to have US insurers pick up tariff-inflated bills and also find new export markets if need be.
Trump’s aim is to revive US drug-making for domestic job creation, which is an odd pursuit in a field whose big payoffs lie in drug discovery, not production lines. But then, US policy can leave even the least fazed in a daze. For now, the real blow is to the logic of free trade.
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