President-elect Trump’s menace to tariff Denmark if it resists his acquisition plans for the island territory of Greenland may disrupt one export that’s wildly widespread in America: Ozempic.
Trump added Denmark to his rising listing of tariff targets — together with Canada, Mexico and China — as he has more and more spoken of the U.S. taking Greenland off Denmark’s arms.
Danish multinational pharmaceutical big Novo Nordisk is the only real proprietor of semaglutide, the lively ingredient in each Ozempic and Wegovy. A month’s provide of Ozempic is near $1,000 with out insurance coverage, although producer coupons and affected person help applications can be found.
Novo Nordisk was estimated to be chargeable for half of Denmark’s gross home product progress in 2024.
In keeping with census knowledge accessible by means of November, pharmaceutical merchandise accounted for roughly 30 p.c of Danish imports coming in by means of U.S. ports in 2024.
Polling from KFF final yr discovered that 1 in 8 U.S. adults stated they’ve tried a GLP-1 drug like Ozempic, together with almost half of these with diabetes and 1 / 4 of individuals with coronary heart illness.
When reached for remark, a Novo Nordisk spokesperson wouldn’t tackle the tariff menace immediately: “We will follow the situation closely; however, we will not comment on hypotheticals and speculations. The geopolitical landscape in today’s world is very dynamic, and we remain focused on our commitment to deliver lifesaving medicines to the patients we serve.”
Medical provide chain specialists have beforehand stated Trump’s proposed tariffs would seemingly trigger the worth of imported medication to go up. Nonetheless, there are a number of components at play in relation to semaglutide entry within the face of the president-elect’s threats.
How severe is Trump?
The incoming administration may have broad authority to enact tariffs and would be capable to construction them as particularly as they want. However some commerce specialists are doubtful that tariffs towards Denmark will ever materialize.
“We do not know if this current Greenland obsession is distraction-generation or anything real,” stated Lori Wallach, director of the Rethink Commerce program at American Financial Liberties Mission.
“Even if there is something to it, he would need to have a legal basis to impose tariffs,” Wallach added. “And depending on what law he uses, and I am hard-pressed to imagine what would work, it could take time.”
However it wouldn’t be the primary time Trump has imposed tariffs on European allies.
Throughout his first time period, Trump enacted levies on European metal and aluminum imports, claiming they threatened nationwide safety. Trump has equally cited safety issues as a cause for his curiosity in Greenland. President Biden suspended these tariffs in 2021 as a part of an settlement with the European Union.
“Things done in the name of national security have broad latitude. And while there could be immediate retaliation by the European Union, there could be other actions that are taken in the courts in the United States and elsewhere,” Penny Naas, a distinguished scholar on the German Marshall Fund, instructed The Hill.
Given the recognition and demand for semaglutide merchandise, in addition to medical units that additionally originate from Denmark akin to listening to aids, Naas notes there can be “tradeoffs” the Trump administration would want to think about in tariffs towards Denmark.
How particular can a tariff be?
The White Home could make tariffs as focused because it desires.
Novo Nordisk is a multinational company with services throughout the globe, together with six within the U.S. The corporate has a facility in Clayton, N.C., the place it fills and packages most injectable weight problems merchandise utilized by sufferers within the U.S.
Giving the instance of a sweater imported from Europe, Naas defined tariffs may be as exact as “the material it’s made from, if it’s for a man or a woman or for children. It can be broken down even further if there’s some kind of embellishment on it. So, you can break down goods to a very minute level, and you can be very surgical and strategic.”
In keeping with Mark Hendrickson, director of provide chain coverage on the well being care enchancment firm Premier Inc., tariffs can take into account quite a few components in relation to imported pharmaceutical merchandise.
“Are we simply speaking about merchandise coming bodily from Denmark into america? Or, particularly, is it what merchandise owned by, on this case, Novo? The place are they coming from? They’ve services everywhere in the world, together with Brazil, China, France after which some native websites in america as properly,” stated Hendrickson.
No matter how a tariff is finally structured, Hendrickson surmises that Novo Nordisk would want to rethink the way it will get merchandise into the U.S., particularly given how massive of a market it’s for the corporate.
There are worldwide agreements that might additionally save Ozempic from being topic to tariffs.
The 1994 Settlement on Commerce in Pharmaceutical Merchandise below the World Commerce Group requires the elimination of tariffs and customs duties on pharmaceutical merchandise and the substances used to make them. The U.S. is among the many signatories to this settlement.
The settlement was final up to date in 2011 and contains greater than 10,000 merchandise.
Compounded variations nonetheless round
Semaglutide was declared to be in scarcity greater than two years in the past by the Meals and Drug Administration (FDA), and, in that point, compounding pharmacies have been capable of promote compounded variations of the drug at a lot decrease costs.
Though the FDA discovered Ozempic and Wegovy to be “Available” in October, the company has but to take away these merchandise from its drug scarcity listing.
When reached for touch upon when Ozempic and Wegovy could come off the scarcity listing, an FDA spokesperson stated the company “cannot provide a general timeline for when a drug may come off the shortage list because each drug shortage is assessed on a case-by-case basis.”
“The FDA continues to actively monitor drug availability and is currently working to determine whether the demand or projected demand for semaglutide within the U.S. exceeds the available supply,” they added.
As compounded medicines are made within the U.S. by compounding pharmacies, a tariff-induced hike within the worth of Ozempic could drive sufferers to show to those home sources.
