Tariff Powerplay

If the world’s largest consumer economy can impose such sweeping conditions on lifesaving medicines, it can do so on other advanced industries.

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Each targeted duty creates pressure for firms to relocate research, production and even talent to the US, where policy makers can claim job creation as a political victory.

SNS: The latest salvo of trade measures from Washington reveals a strategy that is less about correcting trade deficits and more about reshaping the geography of global production. By announcing a 100 per cent import duty on branded and patented drugs, alongside steep levies on heavy trucks and household furnishings, the United States is making a calculated bid to pull capital and capacity back to its own soil.

Companies that already manufacture in America, or pledge to build factories there, are spared the harshest penalties. Everyone else must choose between investing in the US or surrendering a critical market. This is not a mere skirmish over prices.