Let’s discuss Ireland, weight loss drugs, and other trade distortions.

Census data from the commerce department, chart by Mish.

I downloaded census data for 10 countries plus the EU as a hole for 2024 and through April of 2025.

My percentages comparisons come with a caution that the data is not seasonally adjusted so 4 months through April might not equal 33 percent of a year.

Yet, some things stand out, like Ireland which distorted the entirety of the EU by itself.

Trade Deficit Is Second to China

The US trade deficit with Ireland for all of 2024 was $87 billion. For the four months through April, the deficit is already $65 billion.

That’s second to China at $88 billion.

Drugs are in play.

How Weight-Loss Drugs Blew Out the U.S. Trade Deficit

The Wall Street Journal explains How Weight-Loss Drugs Blew Out the U.S. Trade Deficit

Planes have been jetting from Ireland to the U.S. this year carrying something more valuable than gold: $36 billion worth of hormones for popular obesity and diabetes drugs.

The frantic airlift of those ingredients—more than double what was imported from Ireland for all of last year—reflects the collision of two powerful forces: tariff-driven stockpiling and weight-loss drug demand.

The peptide- and protein-based hormones feed into a category of drugs that include wildly popular GLP-1 treatments and newer types of insulin known as analogues. Taken together the shipments weighed just 23,400 pounds, according to U.S. trade data, equivalent to the weight of less than four Tesla Cybertrucks.

Fit into temperature-controlled air-cargo containers, the pharmaceutical ingredients have had a huge impact on the U.S. trade imbalance. The shipments have propelled Ireland, a country of only 5.4 million people, to the second-largest goods-trade imbalance with the U.S., trailing only China. They accounted for roughly half of the $71 billion in goods the U.S. imported from the country in the first four months of the year. [Mish Note: My download feed says $65 billion, not $71 billion so weight loss drugs would be over half.]

Ireland is at the epicenter of the global rush. It is a major hub for U.S. drug giants, who have been expanding operations there in part because of Ireland’s favorable tax policies. Some of the bestselling drugs in the world, such as AbbVie’s anti-wrinkle treatment Botox and U.S. drugmaker Merck’s cancer treatment Keytruda, are made in the country.

The trade imbalance has put Ireland into an uncomfortable position, landing it earlier this month on the U.S. Treasury Department’s monitoring list for currency manipulation, which the government uses to send a warning shot to countries it thinks use unfair trade practices.

Ireland’s central bank said in a report Thursday that new factories making weight-loss drug ingredients helped drive the country’s exports. Ireland’s economy grew by nearly 10% in the first quarter compared with the end of last year thanks to the export surge.

Lilly is a force in the market for weight-loss drugs, with sales of its GLP-1 medicines Mounjaro and Zepbound expected to nearly double this year to about $30 billion, according to Bank of America analysts.

Merck produces cancer treatment Keytruda, the world’s bestselling drug, in Ireland, among other places. Merck Chief Executive Rob Davis in April said the company has enough supply to mitigate any impact this year from tariffs and is working on navigating the long-term fallout of tariffs.

Merck recently began construction on its first U.S. plant to make Keytruda. Lilly said earlier this year it plans to invest $27 billion in expanding U.S. production.

Other Distortions in the Data

Imports from China are down a bit more than one might expect in the absence of tariff front running.

The beneficiaries of that avoidance maneuver are Vietnam and India.

To the ire of Trump, apple is not going to manufacture the iPhone in the US. Instead it is turning to India.

Question of the Day

🤔 pic.twitter.com/tPywzojsqG

— Agorist Nexus (Brandon) (@AgoristN) June 24, 2025

How Much Will an iPhone Cost with Trump’s Tariffs?

On April 7, I commented Sticker Shock: How Much Will an iPhone Cost with Trump’s Tariffs?

If consumers would pay $3,500 for an iPhone, we could bring production to the US.

You are economically brain dead to think it’s a good idea to produce literally everything in the US, but that is what Trump wants.

On May 23, I noted Trump Commands Apple to Make iPhones in the US or Pay 25 Percent Tariff

An increasingly erratic Trump is clueless about what it would take to move iPhones production to the US.

“I had a little problem with Tim Cook yesterday,” Trump said of his conversation. “He is building all over India. I don’t want you building in India.”

Also note that Movies Are Now a National Security Threat, 100 Percent Tariffs Announced

Hooray for Hollywood!

Yes, it’s really this stupid.

And on June 16, I commented After Trump Threatened Apple, His Sons Announce a Made-in-America Phone

Trump Mobile and a $499 “Glued-in-America” phone is coming in August.

The parts for the alleged “Made-in-America” T-Phone are almost entirely from Asia. Even Glued-In-America is highly unlikely, and certainly not for $499 if there is any semblance of quality.

Unlike phones, pharmaceuticals could easily be made in the US. The reason they aren’t is tax code.

A simple fix would set the tax code in the US at a lower rate than tax code overseas. Investment would return to the US in a hurry.

What Should Congress Do? Mish Top 12 Ideas

I mentioned 12 things congress should do on June 3 in Musk “Just Can’t Stand It Anymore”, Calls Spending Bill a “Disgusting Abomination”

Please check it out. Here’s a snip.

Proposal #8: Lower the corporate tax rate to 10 percent but make it 20 percent on income earned overseas. Some manufacturing will return to the US and all of the games played by drug manufacturers including the entire trade deficit with Ireland related to drug production (a massive $86 billion) would immediately return to the US.

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