WSJ What’s News - Trump Declares 100% Tariffs on Pharma Firms Not Building U.S. Plants

Episode Date: September 26, 2025

A.M. Edition for Sept. 26. President Trump unveils new levies on branded or patented drugs from pharmaceutical companies that aren't building manufacturing plants in America. Plus, a federal grand jury in Virginia indicted former FBI director James Comey on charges of making false statements and obstruction during the bureau’s earlier investigation of the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia in the 2016 election. And, WSJ foreign correspondent Sune Rasmussen details the difficulty in defending against drone incursions for NATO, an alliance built for more traditional military conflicts, in a new age of so-called hybrid attacks. Caitlin McCabe hosts. Sign up for the WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This message comes from Viking, committed to exploring the world in comfort. Journey through the heart of Europe on an elegant Viking longship with thoughtful service, destination-focused dining, and cultural enrichment on board and on shore. And every Viking voyage is all-inclusive with no children and no casinos. Discover more at viking.com. President Trump says he's slapping 100% tariffs on pharmaceutical products. from companies that aren't building plants in the U.S. Plus, James Comey is indicted as Trump seeks payback

against the former FBI director. Comey is somebody that Trump has had in his crosshairs really for years, and this development is part of an effort by Trump to exact the sort of vengeance that he talked about on the campaign trail. And we look at the difficulty in defending against drones that are buzzing in to NATO airspace. It's Friday, September 26th. I'm Caitlin McCabe for the Wall Street Journal, and here is the AM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories moving your world today. The White House's trade war is front and center once again today after President Trump announced new tariffs on pharmaceuticals, large trucks, and furniture and home goods.

The pharmaceutical industry stands to bear the biggest brunt of the new levies, with Trump posting on social media that the U.S. will impose a, 100% tariff on branded or patented drugs, unless the company is building a manufacturing plant in the U.S. The announcement marks the latest move by Trump to reshape the pharmaceutical industry. Last month, he sent letters to 17 drug makers asking them to lower drug costs for Americans to match the lowest price offered in other developed nations. In recent months, to get ahead of potential tariffs, more than a dozen pharma companies have announced new U.S. construction projects, with a Wall Street Journal analysis showing they've pledged to spend more than $350 billion by the end of this decade on manufacturing and R&D.

Finance reporter Ben Dummett says Trump's announcement has rattled some markets this morning with shares of drug makers falling in Asia. So far, the response in Europe has been kind of muted. That's partly because the big European pharma companies like Rauch, for example, Nova Nordus, have already announced big investments in the U.S. So that should appease Trump. As for Asia, the sell-off has been more pronounced. But there's a question mark as to how lasting the impact will be

because at least last year, only 4% of U.S. drug imports were from Asia. In addition to the pharma tariffs, Trump also announced a 25% duty on imported heavy trucks, a 50% levy on kitchen cabinets, bathroom vanities, and similar products, and a 30% tariff on upholstered furniture. The president says the levies will begin on Thursday, October 1st. The tariff announcements come as the White House is weighing a plan to dramatically reduce America's reliance on semiconductors made overseas as it looks to spur domestic manufacturing and reshape global supply chains.

We are exclusively reporting that the Trump administration is planning to ask chipmakers to manufacture the same number of semiconductors at home as their customers import from overseas producers. People familiar with the concept said companies that, don't maintain a one-to-one ratio over time would have to pay a tariff. The plan stems from President Trump's comments last month that tech firms that invest more domestically would avoid roughly 100% tariffs on semiconductors. The plan could challenge the biggest tech companies like Apple and Dell Technologies, which import products containing a host of different chips from all around the world.

A federal grand jury in Virginia has indicted former FBI director James Comey on charges of making false statements and obstruction in one of the most glaring examples of President Trump's efforts to seek retribution against his political enemies. The charges come after Trump publicly questioned why the Justice Department hadn't brought cases against several of his key adversaries and called on Attorney General Pam Bondi to act quickly. President Trump pursued this indictment against Comey because he's long had Comey in his crosshairs. That's Journal White House reporter Annie Lindschi. He believes that James Comey broke the law when Comey was investigating Trump for ties, alleged ties, between Trump's first campaign and the Russian government. And this investigation that Comey led in Trump's first term was crippling. It dominated news stories. It was a constant narrative that Trump feels undercut his work in his first term. Last week, the president replaced the U.S. attorney he appointed in the Eastern District of Virginia,

who had told colleagues he did not see a case to bring against Comey. Prosecutors then raced to obtain the indictment as the statute of limitations on such a case was due to run out next week. Annie says the success of that indictment shows Trump has a firm grip on government. This is always a political office. In post-Watergate years, the Department of Justice has always tried to at least appear independent from the White House. This is a complete change from that. This is an instance where Trump was very clear that he wanted an indictment against a person who he perceives as a political enemy. Trump made it very clear. He was disappointed and instead, through the Justice Department, replaced a prosecutor with somebody

who was willing to take this case to a grand jury and bringing it before the grand jury they were successful. But Annie says the indictment is just the start of a lengthy legal process. The arraignment on this case is set for October 9th, but Comey's lawyers are going to have the opportunity to mount the most robust possible defense. Comey is a very sophisticated Washington player. He has the best legal team available to him, but he is also full. facing the full force of the federal government, which also is going to have every resource available to them. So we are looking, staring at the beginning of a legal clash that is going to be occurring over the next months and, quite frankly, probably years. Comey also responded

out of social media posts online, saying that he is innocent and that he plans to vigorously defend his case. Democrats have criticized the case as an abuse of power. Coming up, we unpack the challenge for NATO countries in responding to drones entering their airspace in what's being called a new age of hybrid warfare. That story, after the break. Viking committed to exploring the world in comfort. Journey through the heart of Europe on an elegant Viking longship with thoughtful service, cultural enrichment, and all-inclusive fares.

Discover more at Viking.com. NATO defense ministers are meeting today to address a growing issue. How to stop drone incursions. Just yesterday, Denmark said a hybrid attack had shut its airspace for the second time in a week, while NATO fighter jets shot down several Russian drones that flew into Poland earlier this month. Meanwhile, Russian jets flew into Estonian airspace just last week. They're the biggest breaches of NATO airspace since the Ukrainian war. began, with member states saying the block urgently needs to come up with better defenses.

Foreign correspondent Suna Rasmussen has been covering the drone incursions for the journal. Suna, these seem to be an increasingly regular occurrence. Let's start with what we do know about these attacks. So over the past week, Danish authorities have spotted drones first in Copenhagen, around Copenhagen Airport, which is the busiest airport in Scandinavia. They had to close down for air traffic for several hours on Monday evening. And then later in the week, drones were spotted at four different sites in the western part of the country, including around an airbase that's home to most of Denmark's F-16 and F-35 fighter jets. So those two in particular, the Copenhagen Airport and the airbase are quite serious incursions.

I want to dig in a little bit more to the issue of shooting down drones. Earlier this week, we had President Trump saying that NATO allies should shoot down Russian aircraft in their airspace. But is that a feasible way to handle these incursions? I mean, Danish authorities said it was too dangerous because the airports are near heavily populated areas. I mean, it's feasible in the sense that Denmark could certainly do it. Denmark has adequate defenses against drones. What Denmark doesn't have is an adequate system to detect drones and also to neutralize drones if they come in too large a number. And that speaks to another dilemma in this.

One thing that's holding Danish authorities back, as you say, is, security on the ground. If you shoot down a drone, it will come down, and these are pretty big unmanned vehicles, so it could hit houses, it could hit people on the ground. But I think a bigger issue is also whether it is strategically prudent for a country like Denmark to do so. You could quickly waste quite a large part of your missile arsenal if you shut down drones every time they were sent over Europe if it continues to be a regular occurrence. Denmark and other European countries have called for a so-called drone wall to defend Europe against these types of incursions, but that comes with a whole host of other challenges as well.

Suna, you mentioned a drone wall. If detection is so difficult, what would that look like? One issue that's important to understand is that drone technology is developing much faster than counter-dron technology. So at this point, Russia or Ukraine, for that matter, can send swarms of relatively cheap, affordable, quickly mass-produced drones over an enemy country and basically overwhelm almost counter-drone defense systems or the aerial defense systems of a particular country. And what many Western security officials are now calling for is investment into counter-dron technology, basically technology that can be produced at a faster clip and much cheaper than they're able to produce them now.

That's one issue is sort of hampering this idea of a drone wall. Another issue is that not all drones can be intercepted. I mean, some drones can't be jammed. Some drones are also launched from within the country that they're targeting. That seems to maybe have been the case in Denmark. For example, here late on Wednesday night, were launched in the vicinity of Denmark. They were not launched from far away,

meaning they're not launched from Russia. So that also poses a problem with a drone wall. A drone wall would not necessarily be able to detect or neutralize drones set from within the boundaries of the wall. So if this is just sort of the new frontier of modern warfare, how does this change the military apparatus of countries like Denmark in terms of how they think of defense? Yeah, this is interesting because Denmark in particular, the way that Denmark has approached to war in Ukraine has been to basically donate all its artillery to Ukraine and really focus

on bolstering Ukraine's defenses. But if all of a sudden Denmark is in a situation where it has to use its own aerial defenses and missiles to defend its own territory. And even though Danish authorities haven't blamed anyone for these recent drone incursions, regardless, I think this new pattern that we're seeing in Europe from a Russian perspective that could possibly push Europe to reconsider its priorities in Ukraine and whether supporting Ukraine to the extent it has done so far is the right approach. That's foreign correspondent Suna Rasmussen. Thanks for joining us. You're welcome.

And that's it for What's News for this Friday morning. Today's show is produced by Hattie Moyer. Our supervising producer was Daniel Bach. And I'm Caitlin McCabe for The Wall Street Journal. We'll be back tonight with a new show. Until then, have a nice weekend and thanks for listening. boardrooms love buzzwords AI climate resilience but what do they actually mean for CFOs and execs trying to survive the next earnings call that's where the pre-read comes in real experts and real talk subscribe to the pre-read presented by workiba