How a trade war with the U.S. could hit Canada’s medicine supply

Mina Tadrous, Assistant Professor, Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy

Despite a pause in U.S. tariffs, there is looming uncertainty and concern about how a potential trade war could hit Canada’s medicine supplies.

Canada has been given a 30-day reprieve from U.S. tariffs threatened by President Donald Trump, but that has done little to allay fears in the pharmaceutical realm.

“I think there’s a concern here that any sort of tariff war on this space could send ripples throughout the supply chain,” said Mina Tadrous, an assistant professor at the University of Toronto’s Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy.

Tadrous told Global News the concern stems from the fact that the supply chain for medications is so global that the production of each drug crosses multiple borders before Canadians get the finished product from their local pharmacy.

“So, the structure of how tariffs work can have [an] add-on effect to how the drug pricing works,” he said.

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