An April 4 article in Nature magazine sounds the warning bell on the cost of the Trump tariffs on U.S. science, increasing the costs of labware and specialist scientific instruments in the country. This comes in the wake of grant cancellations and cuts to university funding introduced since January.
“We’re already doing quotes today that are 20% more than they were yesterday,” says Drew Kevorkian, chief executive of ARES Scientific in Miami, Florida, which supplies research equipment to scientific laboratories, including a large number of universities. “I think almost everybody is going to see a price increase of some sort.” Tinglong Dai, who researches global supply chains and healthcare at Johns Hopkins University, said, “This isn’t just about belt-tightening. It could be the last straw—and risks causing lasting damage.”
The U.S. imports billions of dollars worth of lab equipment and reagents every year, many of these products coming from the countries on which the tariffs have been levied, including China, of course, but also Mexico and Canada. China supplies lab equipment and electronic equipment, while Germany and Japan supply high-end lab instruments, such as microscopes and analytical devices. Switzerland (31%) and the United Kingdom (10%) are major exporters of diagnostic tools, antibodies, and specialty chemicals.
“These aren’t luxury items. They’re the core infrastructure of modern science,” said Dai.
The idea that the consumer will then automatically switch to U.S. producers (if they even exist) does not necessarily follow. “Believe it or not,” says Kevorkian, “some of the products that we’re buying overseas, even when you put the tariffs on them, they’re still less expensive than buying them from the U.S.”
