Not all goods will face the new 15% tariff that President Trump announced following the Supreme Court’s ruling against his previous tariff authority. In a significant carve-out, critical minerals, metals, and pharmaceuticals have been explicitly exempted from the new levy — a decision that reflects both the strategic importance of these sectors to the US economy and the political sensitivities surrounding drug prices and national security supply chains.
The exemption for critical minerals is particularly significant given the ongoing strategic competition between the US and China over rare earth elements and other materials essential to the production of semiconductors, electric vehicles, and defense systems. Imposing high tariffs on critical minerals would risk disrupting supply chains that the administration has identified as central to national security — an irony that would undercut Trump’s broader “America First” manufacturing rationale.
Pharmaceuticals present a different kind of political sensitivity. With drug prices already a major domestic political issue, imposing a 15% tariff on imported medicines — many of which Americans rely on daily — would have imposed immediate and visible costs on US consumers. The exemption reflects an awareness that the political costs of tariffing medicine could outweigh the strategic benefits.
Metals are also exempt, which creates some overlap with the sector-specific tariffs on steel and aluminum that remain in place under separate legal authority following the Supreme Court ruling. The interaction between the new blanket 15% tariff, the existing sector tariffs, and the exemptions creates a complex and often confusing tariff landscape for businesses trying to calculate their actual exposure.
USMCA-compliant goods from Canada and Mexico also remain exempt, preserving the integrity of the North American trade framework that the Trump administration negotiated during his first term. For Canadian and Mexican exporters, the Supreme Court ruling and subsequent tariff escalation are of interest primarily as indicators of US trade policy direction — their direct tariff exposure depends on compliance with the USMCA framework rather than the IEEPA or Section 122 authorities.