Ireland shielded from new US pharmaceutical tariffs under EU deal

Ireland’s €33bn pharmaceutical exports to the US remain protected under the EU-US trade deal, despite Trump’s newly announced 100% tariffs

Ireland is a major supplier of pharmaceuticals to the US, exporting €33bn worth of products last year.

New US tariffs targeting pharmaceuticals do not apply to countries that have already negotiated trade deals with the Trump administration, the White House has confirmed.

President Trump announced on Friday a suite of new tariff measures, including 100% duties on pharmaceuticals set to take effect on October 1, casting uncertainty over a previous framework agreement between the EU and the US.

Posts on his Truth Social site showed that Mr Trump’s commitment to tariffs did not end with the trade frameworks and import taxes introduced in August, reflecting the president’s belief that tariffs would help reduce the government’s budget deficit while boosting domestic manufacturing.

Ireland is a major supplier of pharmaceuticals to the US, exporting €33bn worth of products last year — more than a quarter of total EU pharmaceutical exports of €120bn.

Later on Friday, EU officials insisted that the bloc's deal with the US, reached in July, placed a 15% cap on pharmaceutical tariffs.

Olof Gill, deputy chief spokesman for the European Commission, said he was certain Mr Trump’s announcement would not impact the European Union.

“We have a clear, all-inclusive 15% tariff ceiling arising from our deal with the US,” he told RTÉ Radio’s Today with Claire Byrne.

“We're the only trade partner to achieve this outcome with the US, and we look forward to that being implemented soon.

"It's spelled out in black and white in the EU-US Joint Statement that we agreed last month, and it's a clear commitment, so we're sure."

Later on Friday, when asked whether the new US pharmaceutical tariffs would apply to trading partners such as the EU and Japan, which already have trade deals, a White House official told Reuters that the Trump administration would honor the 15% tariff cap included in those agreements.

On Friday evening, Tánaiste Simon Harris welcomed confirmation that the new US pharma tariffs will not apply to the EU or Ireland.

Mr Harris said this was "further proof of the benefit of having a negotiated trade agreement and the benefits of the very intensive work that we in Ireland and at a European Union level undertook over many months with the US administration to ensure this trade deal is in place."

The Tánaiste, who is also the foreign affairs and trade minister, held a series of meetings with US secretary of commerce Howard Lutnick in Washington on Thursday, where they discussed US-Ireland economic, trade, and investment relations.

Mr Harris said he would continue to "intensively engage" with both the EU and the US administration to seek further progress "on the removal of trade barriers between the EU and the US in the time ahead."