Nearly everyone in America who has a pacemaker — in fact, people all over the world — walks around with parts from here.
When President Trump threatens to redo trade deals and slap steep taxes on imports in an effort to add more manufacturing jobs, he focuses largely on car companies and air-conditioner makers. But the medical devices business makes a particularly revelatory case study of the difficulties of untangling global trade.
America imports about 30 percent of its medical devices and supplies. The trouble is, these jobs are among the most difficult to relocate to the United States. To ensure the safety of products that often end up inside the human body, medical devices are strictly regulated and require lengthy approvals from the Food and Drug Administration and other inspectors.
If the companies do keep major operations outside the country, new taxes on imports would most likely increase the cost of their products — a change that could jolt not only the devices industry in coming years, but also health care nationwide.
