Trump’s Threatened Tariffs on Pharmaceuticals Are Deeply Unpopular

As President Donald Trump pushes ahead with his tariff agenda, he’s floated big levies on pharmaceutical imports as his administration pursues a Section 232 investigation into the national security implications of relying on other countries for key goods.

Like the bulk of his other proposed import taxes, Morning Consult’s new research shows tariffs on prescription drugs — at whichever level he may ultimately land — would be unpopular with the electorate, threatening to exacerbate voters’ concerns about the cost of health care as his approval rating on the issue hovers around a second-term low.

Our July 25-27 survey found that nearly half of voters (49%) would oppose a 25% tariff on prescription drug imports, only slightly less than the share who would oppose a 50% tariff on such products. Clear majorities of voters (57%) would oppose both a 100% or 200% tariff on pharmaceutical imports, the latter of which Trump had floated earlier this month.

Republican voters are more likely than not to support the lower levels of tariffs on prescription drugs, but those in the president’s party are almost evenly divided about the higher rates.

The survey fielded as the Trump administration was finalizing a deal with the European Union that European officials say will apply a 15% tariff on pharmaceutical imports from the bloc, whose countries provide 1 in 5 of the active pharmaceutical ingredients for prescription medicines in the United States.

It’s likely that an import tax at that lower level would also prove unpalatable for Americans, our other data suggests. For example, the 15% tariff on Japanese goods Trump announced last week was roughly as unpopular as the threatened 25% tariff we tested a week earlier, with an equivalent 44% opposing both levies alongside a negligible 3-point difference in support.

The bottom line

The unpopularity of tariffs on pharmaceutical imports among Americans tracks with a general theme in our research on the matter, which has shown that Trump’s proposed levies targeting specific sectors and America's closest allies are generally more unpopular than others, though almost all of them, as we showed you last week, are unpopular.

But when it comes to medicine specifically, roughly 88% of which was made from goods produced outside of the United States in 2024, the tariff debate smacks right into a point of weakness for the president. 

For starters, the electorate reacted negatively to his walkback of former President Joe Biden’s effort to reduce the costs of prescription drugs, and his own previously announced plan to tackle the issue was very popular.

On top of that, our weekly tracking has consistently shown health care to be one of Trump’s stickiest issues with voters who have told us throughout the president’s second term that they want his administration to prioritize cutting medical costs.

Our latest survey shows most voters want Trump to make lowering prices for goods and services and making health care more affordable “a top priority,” while few believe he should focus on tariffs. But that’s not what they’re seeing: More voters actually say they believe tariffs are a top priority for Trump than lowering costs, both in a general sense and specifically regarding health care.

That presents an obvious political risk for Trump and for his party ahead of the midterm elections, particularly given the off-year contests’ electoral makeup of older, more politically engaged voters.

Whether this provides an opening for businesses opposed to Trump’s tariff effort to rally support for relief with lawmakers, who are back in their states for the August recess, likely depends on whether markets start to react negatively. But that hasn’t happened, and Republicans in Congress have not been willing to push back against Trump, either, as the governments of other countries have worked to appease his administration and avoid an escalating trade war.