Responding to U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent announcement that the U.S. will soon collect tariffs on pharmaceutical imports, Ministry of Health and Welfare (MHOW) Deputy Minister Lin Ching-yi in an interview with Radio Taiwan International on April 7 said that limited impacts are expected as Taiwan does not have significant pharmaceutical exports to the U.S. She said that the situation could be advantageous to Taiwan in upcoming negotiations, with Taiwan’s relatively high tariffs on U.S. dietary supplements among potential topics to be discussed, while pharmaceuticals are likely to be placed on lower on the Office of Trade Negotiations' agenda.

Regarding concerns from the pharmaceutical industry that the reciprocal tariffs could indirectly impact the drug supply chain and trigger shortages, Deputy Minister Lin said that that both the U.S. and Taiwan heavily depend on active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) sourced from China and India, and that the government has long urged local drug manufacturers to reduce their reliance on Chinese APIs. However, domestically produced APIs are rarely utilized by Taiwanese drug manufacturers due to cost concerns.

On the issue of non-tariff trade barriers, Deputy Minister Lin said that the National Health Insurance Administration has improved the drug review process in recent years to address industry criticisms of inefficiencies and being overly complex. She added that further acceleration of drug review is necessary to better respond to U.S. pharmaceutical tariffs.

[2025-4-7/Radio Taiwan International]