Smaller revenues, less growth: In US, tariffs may create headaches for $34.5B cardiovascular device market
The Trump administration’s ongoing trade war with China could do significant long-term damage in the United States, creating new challenges for the country’s booming cardiovascular device market. That is all according to GlobalData, a leading data analytics firm.
“Many cardiovascular device companies rely on manufacturing outside the U.S. to address demand, especially from the U.S.,” David Beauchamp, a medical analyst with GlobalData, said in a company statement. “Tariffs are likely to cause increases in material cost and disrupt long-standing supply chains. Currently, the U.S. does not have the manufacturing capacity to adjust to possible losses that could result from the impacts of tariffs.”
Medical device manufacturers such as Medtronic, Edwards Lifesciences, Johnson & Johnson MedTech, Abbott and Boston Scientific have focused more and more on the cardiovascular market in recent years. The U.S. population is getting older—and in many cases, sicker—causing the demand for these devices to rise.
Thus far, device companies have remained confident they can push forward in the face of tariffs. Medtronic, for example, estimated that tariffs could cost the company up to $350 million, but its leaders do not seem too phased by the hurdle.
Only time will tell if that confidence persists. For now, Beauchamp noted, these companies should prepare for “decreased revenues and growth” in the United States.
“It remains unlikely that the U.S. can become completely self-sufficient in producing all the components required for advanced cardiovascular medical devices,” he said. “Without a more concrete and stable policy on these tariffs from the current American administration, it is likely that most manufacturers will be forced to continuously change their internal forecasts and production plans.”
Updates on trade disputes—and their impact on the global economy
There may be some good news on the horizon, according to new reports on the ongoing trade dispute between the United States and China. One U.S. official told reporters that the latest talks between the two sides were a success. Chinese officials have said the same thing to the country’s own media.
On June 10, the World Bank Group officially predicted that the U.S. economy will grow half as fast in 2025 as it did in 2024. Trade disputes were specifically mentioned as a reason for that decrease in an official Global Economic Prospects report.
“Only six months ago, a ‘soft landing’ appeared to be in sight: the global economy was stabilizing after an extraordinary string of calamities both natural and man-made over the past few years,” according to the report’s foreword. “That moment has passed. The world economy today is once more running into turbulence. Without a swift course correction, the harm to living standards could be deep. International discord—about trade, in particular—has upended many of the policy certainties that helped shrink extreme poverty and expand prosperity after the end of World War II.”
Michael has more than 18 years of experience as a professional writer and editor. He has written at length about cardiology, radiology, artificial intelligence and other key healthcare topics.