Trump to announce pharmaceutical tariffs within the next two weeks

In the U.S., President Trump has said he will soon announce tariffs on pharmaceutical imports.

This follows his recent announcement of tariffs on overseas movies as the U.S. leader expands the scope of his tariffs push.

Ahn Sung-jin has more.

U.S. President Donald Trump is to announce pharmaceutical-specific tariffs within the next two weeks.

While speaking with reporters at the White House on Monday, Trump said that his country is being "unfairly ripped off" compared to other nations around the world.

Speculation on pharmaceutical tariffs had been raised before when the Trump administration directed the Commerce Department to investigate the effect of drug imports on national security.

On the same day, Trump signed an executive order to incentivize drug manufacturing in the U.S. so pharmaceutical companies could build new production sites.

This order pushes the Food and Drug Administration to reduce the approval time for manufacturing plants by eliminating unnecessary requirements, and directs the Environmental Protection Agency to assist the process of accelerating the construction of facilities.

Other federal agencies issuing permits should also designate a single point-of-contact to coordinate applications.

The announcement of potential levies has brought a stream of investment from drug makers, but some pharmaceutical companies have pushed back.

Pfizer's CEO had said that the tariff threat will inherently deter the company from making further U.S. investments.

U.S. manufacturing in the pharmaceutical industry has shrunk significantly in recent decades with most of the production of ingredients being outsourced to other countries like China for lower labor costs.

Earlier this week, Trump had made a social post saying that he will levy a 100 percent tariff on all movies coming into the U.S. that are produced from outside.

"Our film industry has been decimated by other countries taking them out. And I'm not looking to hurt the industry, I want to help the industry, but they're given financing by other countries."

The White House said on Monday that it was figuring out how to comply with the president's wishes as its Deputy Press Secretary said that though no final decision on foreign film tariffs had been made, "the Administration is exploring all options to deliver on President Trump's directive."

Implementation of these latest tariffs is unclear, but Trump's expansion of his tariff threats to the cultural sector is getting attention from stakeholders in and outside of the country.

Ahn Sung-jin, Arirang News.