AoSHQ The Morning Report
April 15, 2025
The Trump administration is hitting China with harsher tariffs after the country failed to meet the president’s 12:00 p.m. deadline on Tuesday to lift its retaliatory tariffs. This comes after President Donald Trump insisted that China wanted to "make a deal badly."In Other News
Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed on Tuesday that an additional 104% tariff on Chinese imports will be imposed on April 9. In Tuesday’s press briefing, Leavitt also reiterated Trump’s belief that China is looking to make a deal.
Pharma stocks tumbled today after Peter Marks, M.D., Ph.D., director of the agency within the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) responsible for authorizing vaccines, resigned under pressure from his new boss, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.In Other News
“If Peter Marks does not want to get behind restoring science to its golden standard and promoting radical transparency, then he has no place at FDA under the strong leadership of Secretary Kennedy,” an HHS official said in a statement.
Shares of Moderna, BioNTech, Novavax and Pfizer declined 11%, 7%, 6% and 2%, respectively, on the news, Fast Company reported. STAT News reported that Marks’ departure “is a worst-case scenario realized” for investors and “a biopharma industry that saw him as an ally.”