FOR the moment, the pharmaceutical industry has managed to dodge the bullet of the US trade tariffs which, at the very least, seem designed to create havoc with the global trading order. The collective sigh of relief here in Mayo, where four thousand direct jobs and as many more in subsidiary employment are dependent on the pharma industry, has been palpable. How long that reprieve will last is anybody's guess, but for now, the evil day has been staved off , despite renewed dark mutterings from Washington of impending levies.

There are several differing opinions as to why President Trump - up to now a strident critic of US pharma investment in Ireland - spared the guillotine on pharma while imposing a 20 percent levy on everything else imported from Ireland. The main theory would suggest that imposing high drug costs on the US healthcare system, the biggest consumer of such products, would have serious consequences for the American health budget. Given the negative market response to the new tariff regime, and Wall Street's decisive thumbs down for the Trump trade agenda, there is reason to hope we have avoided the worst and........

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