WASHINGTON—The Trump administration said it isn’t planning to impose tariffs on generic drugs from foreign countries, after months of wrangling over whether to impose levies on the vast majority of drugs that are dispensed in the U.S.

The administration has been weighing duties on a range of pharmaceutical products and ingredients, using a tariff investigation under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, which covers threats to national security. President Trump last month posted online that he would impose 100% tariffs on name-brand drugs on Oct. 1, but didn’t mention generics. Trump ultimately delayed imposing tariffs, as officials said they would allow for more negotiations with drug companies.

“The administration is not actively discussing imposing Section 232 tariffs against generic pharmaceuticals,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said in a statement. A spokesman for the Commerce Department, which is handling the tariff investigation, similarly said that the 232 investigation wouldn’t result in tariffs on generics.

The move, which isn’t final and could change in the coming weeks, comes after months of debate within the administration over how to bring manufacturing of generic drugs back to the U.S. and what role tariffs should play in that effort. While Trump has targeted name-brand drugs in tariff threats, he has made few recent statements on generics—the antibiotics, heart medications and other commonplace drugs that make up about 90% of medicines dispensed to Americans every day but are largely sourced from outside the country.

The decision not to impose tariffs on generics represents a major scaling-back of the scope of the Commerce Department’s tariff investigation into pharmaceuticals. When the pharmaceutical tariff probe was announced in April, the Federal Register notice specified that the investigation would target “both finished generic and non-generic drug products,” as well as drug ingredients.

It is also a reversal of a Trump campaign pledge. In a 2023 campaign video, Trump said he would “phase in tariffs and import restrictions to bring back production of all essential medicines to the United States of America where they belong,” referencing a number of common generic drugs.

Those in the administration who have cautioned against potential negative impacts of generic drug tariffs have included members of Trump’s Domestic Policy Council and one of its healthcare policymakers, Theo Merkel, a onetime aide to Pat Toomey, the former GOP senator from Pennsylvania and free-trade advocate, according to people familiar with the discussions. They have said that applying tariffs to generic medications would result in price increases and even drug shortages for consumers, the people said. And they have said tariffs wouldn’t work for generics because they are so cheap to produce in countries such as India—where nearly half of U.S. generic drugs originate—that even very high tariffs might not make U.S. production profitable.

Conversely, some Commerce Department officials have argued that tariffs and quotas on generic drugs might eventually be necessary to bring medicine production back to the U.S. and prevent a repeat of the snarled global supply chains during the pandemic, the people familiar with the discussions said.

Protectionists in Trump’s orbit have argued that pharmaceutical tariffs must include a finding that reliance on foreign suppliers of generic drugs is a national-security risk. And they have said that high tariffs, combined with government support for new production facilities in the U.S., could make domestic manufacturing of generic drugs profitable.

Desai said there was no “daylight or disagreement between the Commerce Department and White House on this issue.”

The generic drug issue highlights the challenges the administration is facing as it seeks to bring manufacturing back to the U.S. for industries it considers critical to national security. Trump’s team wants to encourage domestic production of antibiotics and other everyday medications to reduce reliance on India and China, where many of the drug precursors originate. Last week, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer suggested at the Economic Club of New York that the administration could add tariffs on generic drugs as well as name-brand medicines.

“When we talk about generics, it’s a different supply chain” from name-brand drugs, Greer said when asked which products would be affected by Trump’s pharma tariffs. “Right now, we’re considering the best way to deploy economic tools with respect to generics. A lot of that is coming in tariff-free.”

The decision not to apply tariffs to generic drugs risks angering some GOP protectionists. Last week, Sen. Rick Scott (R., Fla.), a protectionist close to Trump, sent a letter to administration officials urging them to apply tariffs not just to name-brand pharmaceuticals, but generics as well.

In addition to discussions on tariffs, some in the Trump administration are beginning to plan for other forms of government assistance to reshore generic-drug manufacturing. The administration is weighing whether the president should issue an executive order to offer federal grants or loans to domestic manufacturers of critical generic drugs, people familiar with the matter said. That could involve using money from foreign governments such as Japan that has been secured as part of a tariff deal with the Trump administration, though those infrastructure funds have yet to be set up. 

Desai said the administration is “implementing a nuanced and multi-faceted approach to onshore manufacturing of generic pharmaceuticals and ensure that Americans are never again left in the lurch due to foreign dependence as they were during the Covid era.”