Mike Alkire, chief operating officer at Premier, which negotiates for some 3,750 American hospitals, said
that while prices would initially spike if the Trump administration hit countries like Mexico or China with tariffs, “we’ve got enough diversity in the way we source products, we think we can manage the costs.”
“Over the long term,” Mr. Alkire added, “we do think the market will stabilize and the most efficient place to produce products will occur.”
But chief executives at some of the United States’ largest hospitals are nervously
watching the gathering legislative, economic and geopolitical storm.
“For that reason now,” he said, “you don’t know if you start some operation tomorrow how it’s going to be affected.”
If the United States does approve a border tax, Mr. Felix Diaz added, “the final customer is going to pay.”
The final tally of just how much American customers — hospitals, clinics, nursing homes and doctors’ offices — would pay is unclear.
If Mexico imposes tariffs on raw materials from American suppliers, a likely response to any border tax imposed by the United States, production costs
would spike for companies in Mexico or those companies would shift to suppliers in other countries eager to cut low-tariff deals like China.
American companies draft plans to build new plants — or expand existing ones — years in advance, said Miguel Felix Diaz, vice president of the Baja California Medical Device Cluster, an organization
that represents 63 medical device manufacturing plants that employ 60,000 Mexican workers.