President Trump has reached a trade agreement with the European Union, imposing a 15 percent tariff on most items. However, the president said that pharmaceuticals are excluded from the agreement, pending an ongoing U.S. investigation.

EU officials hope that when the dust settles, pharmaceutical tariffs won’t be higher than 15 percent, which they see as a win, since that’s less than Trump’s threat to impose tariffs of up to 200 percent on prescription drugs and their active ingredients manufactured outside the U.S.

Trump is keeping up the tariff pressure on drugs reportedly to encourage onshoring and bring more U.S. pharmaceutical manufacturing jobs to the U.S. But given that Trump has complained about high drug costs, imposing outrageously high tariffs on pharmaceuticals would be a terrible, not to mention costly, idea.

In 1994, as part of World Trade Organization negotiations, several major trading partners agreed to exempt most pharmaceuticals from tariffs, known as a “zero-to-zero initiative.” The thought was that pharmaceuticals are just too important to........

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