The U.S. yesterday exempted several categories of medical devices from the 25% tariffs imposed on Chinese goods by the Trump administration, including surgical, radiotherapy and dental devices.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said the new exclusions are retroactive to July 6, 2018, when tariffs went into effect on some $34 billion in imports from China, and are due to extend for another year. U.S. medtech makers originally faced about $836 million in tariffs, but that number is lower now that nine types of medical device are on the list of 110 exempted products.
Here’s a list of the medical devices not subject to the tariffs:
- Veterinary ultrasound device with black-and-white image quality used as a medical diagnostic tool
- Microwave ablation antennas, whether or not with attached controls, as parts of ablation systems used to ablate live tumors
- Parts and accessories of electro-surgical instruments and appliances, other than extracorporeal shock wave lithotripters
- Smoke evacuation pencils with accompanying tubing and hoses designed to integrate smoke evacuation into electrosurgery by combining both features into a single handpiece, which is designed to apply mono-polar electrosurgical energy to target tissue in a surgical setting while simultaneously evacuating smoke from the surgical site
- Suction coagulators, consisting of a hand-piece with mechanical and/or electrical controls and a disposable shaft, used for the coagulation of tissue and aspiration of fluids during surgical procedures
- Vessel sealing and dividing devices that use electrical energy to separate and seal tissue during open or laparoscopic surgical procedures, consisting of a handpiece with mechanical and/or electrical controls, and a bipolar electrode intended to deliver electrosurgical current from a system generator directly to tissues for cutting/coagulation/ablation
- Dental X-ray alignment and positioning apparatus, each valued over $5,000
- Multi-leaf collimators of radiotherapy systems based on the use of X-ray
- Overhead tube suspension used to hold and position X-ray generating equipment
