Trump tariffs bring furrowed brows to Ireland’s Botox town

The peak of Karag Patrick dominates the Westpport horizon, a beautiful city on the Atlantic coast in Ireland. On the other hand, its economy units are dominated by gray factory units that do not have a window that manufactures the entire Botox supplies in the world for an American company. Donald Trump wants to move medicines to the house.

This week, the US president went up to criticize the operations of Irish -American companies. His threats to impose a tariff to encourage investors to restore the threat to the weight of 7,000 people from Westport: about 1500 of them work by ABBIE to make drugs that rebelworm.

“People are withholding their breath,” said Geradine Horgan, CEO of the Westport Trade Chamber, who worked in Allergan before seizing it by ABBVie in 2020.

Ireland has become a major base for American pharmaceutical companies including Pfizer, Eli Lilly and Johnson & Johnson.

Besides Botox-which leaves Westbort as a veneer of the powder to be mixed with a saline solution before injection into the celebrity front or to treat cerebral palsy or muscle spasms-factories in Ireland are made of active ingredients for drugs including Viagra, and the treatment of low weight mounjaro and statins for high cholesterol.

Ireland was accelerating the export of medicines to the United States before the fall of any tariff an ax: In February, 91 percent of all goods exports to the United States were chemicals and relevant products, which include medical goods and medicines. Irish drug exports to the United States in the first two months of the year reached nearly 20 billion euros, compared to 44 billion euros throughout the past year, according to official trade data.

Although Trump imposed global definitions, which stopped last week at a basic global rate of 10 percent awaiting commercial deals with the European Union and other countries, pharmaceutical goods are currently free of customs tariffs.

Ireland’s Minister of Trade, Simon Harris, says it will be “inappropriate” and “strange” for the United States to impose definitions during negotiation.

But re -rest appears to be increasingly likely. The US Department of Commerce launched a “232” section in the sector, which will allow the president to restrict imports that are a threat to national security.

This may lead to a customs tariff in “the next month or two.”

Trump, who used a meeting with Taoiseach Micheál Martin last month to complain that Ireland “got the entire American pharmaceutical industry in its understanding” on Monday criticized in this sector again.

He said: “We do not create our own drugs, or our drugs anymore. Pharmaceutical companies are in Ireland and they are in many other places – China.”

Allergan opened a factory to produce contact lenses and EyCare products in Westport in 1977. Now, real money is sold from Botox, but the facility also produces Eyecare drugs, and 70 percent of Westport production is sold in the United States, according to the results of the Irish process that was recently presented, from 2023.

In Botox, there are now competitors who make chemically similar products – including the Dysport, produced by France and Xeomin from MERZ in Germany – but ABBIE says it is confident that it can maintain its leadership position.

While Botox for cosmetic purposes brought $ 2.72 billion in net revenue last year, according to ABBIE, the therapeutic botox amounted to $ 3.3 billion. The customs tariff would enhance the price of drugs for users, and cosmetic applications are not covered by American health insurance.

Peter Flynn, local adviser and former international tax and financing director at Allergan, said. “[Trump’s] He said that cheap notes do not do anyone.

He added: “With the automation of production lines and increasing quality standards constantly, the focus in Ireland has changed with the multiplicity of multinational reasons that now employ highly qualified and experienced qualified people, and many of them play a major role in research and development.”

Ireland is the third largest drug exporter in the world, with 90 European Union sites and other countries as well as the United States. More than 10 billion euros have been invested in the sector over the past decade. Denmark, Switzerland and Singapore are other countries with large drug sectors in Trump’s features.

Many drug makers responded by announcing major investments in the United States. Johnson & Johnson has pledged $ 55 billion over the next four years, Eli Lilly invests $ 27 billion, while Novartis’s Swiss Drug Maker said last week that he will invest 23 billion dollars in manufacturing, research and development.

Pharmaceutical leaders wrote to the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Layen, that Europe has risked the loss of 100 billion euros of investment and spending on research and development over the next five years, as the American customs tariffs and the proposed European Union reforms on the protection of intellectual property make the European Union less attractive.

But Ireland is uniquely exposed to any Trump’s work: Besides Big Pharma, it hosts the European headquarters or the large operations of American technology giants, which Von der Lin threatened to target in the event of tariff talks.

Tech and Pharma offers huge tax contributions from companies that have made huge budget surpluses.

Botox also helped Westport grow to become a colored and mixed city of boat, restaurants, hotels, elegant shops and traditional bars.

In addition to being the largest employer in the city, the company was a prominent supporter and sponsor of local initiatives and sports teams. “It will be an enormous loss,” said Adrian Nonan, owner of the Knockranny House Hotel, the first four -star hotel in the city, which is located next to the factory, which hosted the executives and council meetings.

New pharmaceutical factories need regulatory approval, which may mean years of delay in transferring production to the United States, but analysts said that executives will actually fail the brakes on future investment plans in Ireland.

“We are all very concerned,” said Philip Henny, the local pharmacist. They talk about the fact that Canada is 51 [US] state. But with Pharma, we are almost. “