Tariffs hit science labs: Trump levies raise cost of supplies

Import taxes on staples such as microscopes, glassware and computer chips will affect institutions already feeling financial strain

Higher tariffs on imports into the United States is affecting the global trade of laboratory supplies.Credit: Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times via Getty

The Trump administration’s sweeping tariffs on imports into the United States — which range from 10% on products from some countries up to 54% on goods from China — are increasing the costs of labware and specialist scientific instruments in the country. The price increases come as research budgets for US labs are stretched thin by unprecedented grant cancellations and cuts to university funding introduced since Donald Trump’s second presidency began in January.

“We're already doing quotes today that are 20% more than they were yesterday,” says Drew Kevorkian, CEO of ARES Scientific in Miami Florida, which supplies research equipment to scientific laboratories, including a large number of universities. “I think almost everybody is going to see a price increase of some sort.”

The latest round of tariffs — the first of which come into effect on 5 April for all countries, to be followed by steeper hikes for some on 9 April — represent “systemic changes to the cost structure of doing science — and they’re landing at a time when research institutions are already under acute financial stress”, says Tinglong Dai, who researches global supply chains and healthcare at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. “This isn’t just about belt-tightening. It could be the last straw — and risks causing lasting damage.”

The United States imports billions of dollars worth of lab equipment and reagents each year, says Dai. Many of these products come from countries about to be hit by tariff rises, including China, Switzerland, Japan, the United Kingdom and EU countries; others come from Mexico and Canada, on which the Trump administration imposed tariffs earlier this year.

Announcing the tariffs on 2 April, Trump said they will save the United States from a “national emergency”, boost a hollowed-out manufacturing base and reduce the country’s dependence on “foreign adversaries”. The announcement prompted global financial turmoil: stocks tumbled, and the International Monetary Fund is warning of a significant risk to the global economy.

Microscopes, glassware, DNA sequencers

Researchers told Nature that the prices of many scientific products could be affected.

China supplies basic lab equipment, such as glass tubes, and reagents as well as advanced electronic equipment such as computer chips, LCDs and incubators to the United States, they say. Germany (whose imports will be hit with a 20% tariff) and Japan (24%) supply high-end lab instruments such as microscopes or precision analytical devices, while Switzerland (31%) and the United Kingdom (10%) are major exporters of diagnostic tools, antibodies, and specialty chemicals. Mexico supplies plastic-ware and Canada supplies specialised equipment such as DNA sequencers and cell counters. Sterilisers, centrifuges and washers for lab glassware used in US labs often come from Europe.

“These aren’t luxury items,” says Dai. “They’re the core infrastructure of modern science.”

Mikhail Kats, a physicist at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, says it’s not clear how tariffs will apply to items already budgeted for in a grant. “Do we budget the price or the price with the tariff?” he asks.

Kevorkian says around 60% of the products his company supplies are made in the United States, while 40% are imported. But even US-made products rely on imported components, say researchers, “A DNA sequencer built in California might still depend on optics from Germany and semiconductors from China,” says Dai.

Switching to US-based suppliers doesn’t always reduce costs, says Kevorkian. “Believe it or not, some of the products that we're buying overseas, even when you put the tariffs on them, they're still less expensive than buying them from the US.”