We must stop importing medication from China

If there’s a silver lining to the novel coronavirus, it’s that our dependence on China for medication and medical devices has been brought to the fore (at least to those paying attention).

Our dependence on China for these vital supplies is insane for all the obvious reasons, none-the-least of which is how quickly we could be brought to our knees. We must act now to break this dependence and start manufacturing medication here at home.

India, which manufactures most of the world’s generic drugs, is already taking steps to reduce their reliance on ingredients from China (here). This point is worthy of a brief explanation. Although a medication may be made in a certain country, the active and inactive ingredients for that medication almost always come from China. So, while China may not manufacture the final product, they hold the keys to production.

Not good.

But there’s movement afoot in Congress to change that. Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) is leading the charge with legislation to break this dangerous cycle. He is calling on Congress to pass an emergency spending bill connected to the coronavirus that will secure our supply chain of medication. Congressman Mike Gallagher (R-WI) and Mike Pocan (D-WI) have introduced similar legislation in the House. (here)

Rosemary Gibson, author of China Rx, believes we could begin manufacturing medication in the United States in less than a year and that start-ups are poised to do so. Yet nothing is happening.

Gibson has been sounding the alarm which often falls on deaf ears. She notes that funding for coronavirus must also address our dependence on China for medication. Breitbart reports:

Yeah, figure that. No big profits in it for big pharma, obviously.

Pharmas invited China to make their base ingredients, to dave costs. Then, China saw the $$$ in drugs began making final products.

The China Rx scenario is a shame upon our pharmas and our government.

But then, we have a government-medical-pharma-insurance complex. And it is NOT about serving or helping us.

We need to stop putting tariffs on specific countries, I don't know when that started but that needs to stop. We need to tariff specific products, no matter where it is made.

What's the point of that? If we tariff the crap out of only certain items, places like China will simply go around it. While still putting massive tariffs on out stuff. Likewise for any other country: they all have different levels of tariffs on us, as well as different levels of subsidies. The only way to counter that is to tariff specific products from that country, not just random products from everywhere.

Wow, the ignorance about how tariffs work is astounding. Let me explain with an example, if a tariff is on ALL TVs coming into the USA from all countries then THERE IS NO WAY AROUND THE TARIFF.

And what good does a tariff on TVs do for all the remotes coming in with them? On the cheap crappy air compressors? On the crappy work gloves? On the laptops? On the hard drives? On the plasticware? On the crappy knives? On the wiffle ball and bat? On the anitbiotics? On the almost everything?

Placing a tariff on a single / group of goods worldwide doesn't do much, as they'll just concentrate on the goods that aren't tariffed, while subsidizing companies that are getting big tariffs. (Yes, it'll help domestic producers, while raising the costs for all consumers.) Unless you plan to tariff just about everything we're importing, You're gonna have a hard time punishing China by tariffing every country on every crappy item China makes.

And, how does that work for countries we have free trade agreements with? Or other trade agreements? Are they gonna get the new tariffs, or is there a loophole for items from countries that fall under other trade agreements? In that case, what's to stop China from using them as a loophole, since a tariff on "all TVs" doesn't apply to certain other countries?

(Yes, it'll help domestic producers, while raising the costs for all consumers.)

Yes of course it will, It will be inflationary at first then prices will stabilizes as domestic producers compete with each other.

You are from the American stupid school of macro economics. EVERY OTHER COUNTRY USES TARIFFS VERY EFFECTIVELY IN THEIR FAVOR AND AGAINST THE USA. The retarded economic non thinking you consistently display is killing us.

And every other country mostly uses tariffs primarily against these US, it's not a flat tariff on all countries, per product. Sure, there's a few exceptions like French wines and whatnot, but most countries base tariffs on the trade deal with each country, not on a global flat rate. If we place a blanket tariff everywhere, what's the point of making trade deals with anyone? The tariffs are there, they're flat across the globe, so what does a trade deal really do? What country is going to give us free access to their markets, if we don't reciprocate? Sure, there's more factors involved, but tariffs per country is a major factor. They don't care about the rest of the world, they care what we do for them specifically.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.