Pharmaceuticals

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During the Uruguay Round of the World Trade Organziations (WTO) negotiations, the United States and several other major trading partners agreed to reciprocal tariff elimination, a so-called "zero-for-zero initiative," for pharmaceutical products and for chemical intermediates used in the production of pharmaceuticals.

Pharmaceutical-producing countries accounting for approximately 90 percent of global production of the subject pharmaceutical chemicals participate in the Agreement.

Signatories to the WTO Pharmaceutical Agreement are Canada, the European Union and its 27 Member States, Japan, Norway, Switzerland, the United States, and Macao (China).

Members of the pharmaceutical initiative have agreed to periodically update the list of items eligible for duty elimination as new pharmaceutical products and chemical intermediates are developed. Updates to the initial agreement have occurred in 1996, 1998, and 2006.

The most recent update, which became effective January 1, 2007, added 1,290 new substances to the list of pharmaceutical products eligible for duty-free treatment.

U.S. imports of products covered by the Agreement are estimated to exceed $60 billion annually. U.S. exports of these products exceed $25 billion.

Related topics:

WTO Non-Agricultural Market Access

Related agreements:

Related documents:

Pharmaceutical Appendix to the U.S. Harmonized Tariff Schedule
Plurilateral Sectoral Negotiations During the Uruguay Round

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Pharmaceuticals