Think Tank Says Section 301 Tariffs on Medical Supplies Added to Coronavirus Crisis

China accounted for 26% of imports of medical devices, protective gear and other supplies needed to fight the coronavirus epidemic before the trade war began, according to a recent paper by Peterson Institute for International Economics economist Chad Bown -- and after tariffs were put on the goods, those imports fell by 16%.

Bown wrote that two rounds of exclusions do not cover all the medical goods that faced higher Section 301 tariffs, and he said “the US health crisis demands that the administration comprehensively and permanently reverse these policies of self-harm.” Before the trade war, the tariffs on these goods were mostly zero; a few had tariffs of less than 4.5%; and medical headware was taxed at 6% to 8%.

“Americans imported about $22 billion of such products from the world in 2019, before the outbreak of COVID-19,” he wrote, and imports shifted away from China to other countries. “Now the US medical establishment faces looming trouble importing these necessities from other countries, which may be hoarding them to meet their own health crises.”

He noted that these problems could have been foreseen. Linda O'Neill, from Health Industries Distributors Association, told the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative last June as it solicited comments on Section 301 tariffs: “Tariffs on critical health care products put a risk to our nation's public health preparedness.”