A White House fact sheet from April 3, 2025, explicitly states that "other goods not subject to the reciprocal tariffs include copper, semiconductors, lumber, bullion, energy, and certain minerals that are not available in the U.S.
I have not seen a general exemption.
It’s more than a little ironic that people on here keep complaining about the lack of professionalism while simultaneously relying fully on stuff like the WH factsheet.
With that said, you should stop your selective quotes, this speaks ill of you. There’s a reason why I included the caveat.
Lumber is not available in the US? Have they cut down the woods already?
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Strange. They have had disputes with Canada over softwood ex/imports for decades. Very unusual that they would exempt lumber from their tariffs.
Wow, we’re fully through the looking glass now, right…? 
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Yɘƨ wɘ ɒɿɘ inbɘɘb.
4 posts were split to a new topic: Language Tax on English Users
I just realized that the EU plan to source more armaments locally will also have a significant impact on the balance of trade
Donnie has an uphill struggle…
Not really an option. Even with the best of intentions and all the monies in Europe anything remotely able to take on… say the US will be ten to fifteen years behind the Americans. On the other hand, if you want to take on Russia then you need masses and masses of cheap war materials that you can throw at them.
Basically the EU would have to switch the industrial base from peacetime manufacturing to wartime manufacturing.
The other problem is that there is no money left and I doubt that the EU has the balls to do a kind of Mefo-Wechsel scheme.
Oh, a significant part of the trade imbalance between US and Switzerland is gold. The Swiss Federal Council mentioned it yesterday in the press conference. I think bowlie mentioned it in other thread, but I reply here 
The article headline from 18.03.2025 is a bit curious now: strategic alliance, special relationship…parasocial relationship.
Swiss gold, a new strategic ally for the United States in a world in complete disorder
Anyway, from the gold exports data and a rough estimate of monthly gold prices:
- In 2024, Switzerland exported around 13 billion USD in gold to the US
- Gold is 30% of the trade imbalance in goods between CH and US
- The total trade (goods+services) imbalance in 2024 is 17.4 billion.
- Basically, the 2024 trade imbalance between US and CH could be explained by gold trade.
- Gold exports in Jan 2025 were 40% than whole year 2024.
Who would have thought that being the world leader in precious metal refining (2/3 of gold world trade) could have a downside?
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Gold movement are causing huge distortions. The funny things is due to different gold bar sizes used in US vs UK, the bars are being sent from London to Switzerland to be melted and re-cast into different sized bars and then flown to the US.
I actually quite like the charm of this inefficiency. Due to having to physically move the stuff and limited people who are allowed to move it, there are huge bottlenecks to removing gold from the vaults (and storing at the other side). That’s before you get onto the whole logistics of re-sizing the bars.
You don’t have this hassle with cryptocoins.
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I guess it’s about time to drink something strong today:
The drug industry got a temporary reprieve on Wednesday when foreign-made medicines were exempted from President Trump’s far-reaching new tariffs.
But Mr. Trump has been saying for weeks that he plans to impose tariffs specifically on pharmaceuticals, with the goal of shifting overseas production of medications back to the United States. He has said those levies could be 25 percent or higher. Drugmakers still expect tariffs targeting them to be announced soon.
“The pharmaceutical companies are going to come roaring back, they’re coming roaring back, they’re all coming back to our country because if they don’t, they got a big tax to pay,” Mr. Trump said in remarks at a Rose Garden event on Wednesday.
Manufacturing drugs abroad is not always about cost savings since very little of a drug’s price (e.g. biologics) is cost of goods. Companies may choose to do it for redundancy, supply chain security, capacity/scalability, regulatory and market access.
Unfortunately a lot of good people at the FDA have been fired or stepped down so not sure the message will get through to the administration.
LOL…, There are two companies in the world that make the rollers that print the little letters and numbers on pills.
One is in Germany, the other is in Indonesia.
Both have high Tarifs.
No printing rollers, no pills made in the US.
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Does the phrasing of the thread title express the first shock?
Ummm…perhaps read up.
That is interesting. Not sure how well the costs would work when running batches in the millions though.
Who needs printing on the pills. RFK has plans for home grown herbal remedies. Donnie is concerned about supply chain problems. So the answer is Mar el Largo. Turn the rough into herbal remedy fields. Made in the USA. Consumed in the USA. Died in the USA.
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Swiss must be making a killing flying it over.