Vaccine giant CSL registered a sharp 7 per cent drop, as did radiology company Pro Medicus, in just the first 15 minutes of trade.
Prices in both shares rallied soon after, but still dragged the ASX200 down to a minor loss at the time of publishing.
The sheer plummet came after a Truth Social post in which Trump stipulated a much-mooted tariff on imported pharmaceuticals would begin within days.
“Starting October 1st, 2025, we will be imposing a 100% Tariff on any branded or patented Pharmaceutical Product, unless a Company IS BUILDING their Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Plant in America,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“‘IS BUILDING’ will be defined as, ‘breaking ground’ and/or ‘under construction.’ There will, therefore, be no Tariff on these Pharmaceutical Products if construction has started. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
If the costs of the tariffs are passed on to consumers, the price of imported medicine in the US could effectively double.
This is also a decision that will have a potentially outsized impact on Australia, as vaccines are one of our largest exports to the US.
In 2024, Australia exported about $2.07 billion worth of pharmaceutical products to the US.
While that pales in comparison to larger medicine exporters such as Switzerland (which exported $45.9 billion worth of pharmaceuticals to the US in 2023), it is still a significant slice of Australia’s trade with the US – though exports to the US overall are only a small part of Australia’s global trade.
Australian beef exports to the US have grown this year despite a 10 per cent tariff in place, but it remains to be seen how medicine distributors stateside will react.
Trump also announced import tariffs of 50 per cent on kitchen cabinets and bathroom vanities, 30 per cent on upholstered furniture, and 25 per cent on heavy trucks.
Trump said foreign-made furniture was “flooding” the US.
“It is a very unfair practice, but we must protect, for National Security and other reasons, our Manufacturing process,” he said.
He said the truck tariffs was to protect local manufacturers from “unfair outside competition”.
