Korea tariffs may rise, but drug imports still await a US national security decision

Drugmakers are now watching what the U.S. government publishes on pharmaceuticals, because without a formal decision and an implementation plan, the timing and size of any new duties remain unclear. (Credit: Getty Images)

KoreaBIO, a trade association that represents biotechnology companies in Korea, circulated a note to members on Tuesday arguing that the pharmaceutical portion of President Donald Trump’s latest tariff threat was unlikely to translate into an immediate new duty at the U.S. border, because the legal process the United States has been using to set drug-specific tariffs is still unresolved.

Trump wrote on Truth Social on Monday that he would raise tariffs on South Korean goods to 25 percent from 15 percent, naming autos, lumber and pharmaceuticals. The post did not spell out an implementation date or cite the legal authority that would be used to apply a higher rate to medicines.

KoreaBIO’s argument rests on how drugs were handled in the last set of U.S.-Korea tariff documents, which treated pharmaceuticals differently from products like cars and wood.

A U.S. government fact sheet dated Nov. 13 said the United States would reduce its Section 232 “sectoral” tariffs on Korean autos, auto parts, timber, lumber and wood derivatives to 15 percent.

In the same document, pharmaceuticals were framed as conditional: “for any” Section 232 tariffs imposed on pharmaceuticals, the United States said it intended to apply a rate “no greater than 15 percent” to Korean-origin goods.

South Korea’s presidential office described the arrangement in similar terms the next day. In a Nov. 14 policy briefing posted on the government’s policy portal, Kim Yong-beom, the presidential chief of staff for policy, said the United States’ 15 percent adjustment covered existing Section 232 tariffs on autos, parts and wood products, while any pharmaceutical Section 232 tariff “in the future” would apply “up to 15 percent.”

That distinction matters because Section 232 is not a generic tariff switch. It is a provision of U.S. trade law that requires the Commerce Department to investigate whether specific imports threaten national security before the president can impose restrictions tied to the findings. The Commerce Department opened a Section 232 investigation into pharmaceuticals and pharmaceutical ingredients on April 1, 2025, according to a notice published in the Federal Register.

Taken together, those documents complicate the idea of an overnight jump to 25 percent for drugs. The November fact sheet did not describe pharmaceuticals as part of the earlier “25 to 15” sectoral rollback applied to autos and wood products; it described them as a contingency under Section 232, with language that pointed to a ceiling of 15 percent if a drug tariff were imposed.

KoreaBIO said that, without a completed Section 232 process and a published implementation plan for pharmaceuticals, the “25 percent immediately” framing would be harder to execute for medicines than for products already sitting inside an active Section 232 tariff framework.

At the same time, the group cautioned that it could not fully rule out a scenario in which the broader trade arrangement is revised and the earlier “no greater than 15 percent” language becomes a negotiating target.