r/Defeat_Project_2025

Donald Trump is threatening 100% tariffs on pharmaceutical companies that have not struck deals to lower US drug prices.

- The new tariff will only apply to branded drugs and their active ingredients. Generic drugs, which make up more than 90% of medicines sold in the US, will be exempted from tariffs for at least one year. Orphan, veterinary and other specialty drugs are exempt if they are from trade deal countries or meet urgent public health needs.

- Drugmakers who enter pricing agreements with the White House and onshore drug production will be exempted from the tariffs. Companies that plan to increase their domestic manufacturing will see a 20% tariff that will increase to 100% in four years.

- The US has already agreed to exemptions for 17 drugmakers, four of which are still being negotiated. Big drugmakers that have signed deals, which exempt them from tariffs for three years, include Pfizer and Eli Lilly, among others.

- Large companies have 120 days before the rate goes into effect and can negotiate deals with the White House to skirt the tariff or reduce the levy. Smaller companies will have 180 days to negotiate deals.

- The executive order risks creating an “unfair two-tiered system of exemptions” benefiting only big companies that have already made most-favored-nation deals with Trump, said the Midsized Biotech Alliance of America (MBAA), an industry group.

- Mid-sized drugmakers “lack diversified portfolios to absorb these sudden cost increases”, Alanna Temme, MBAA’s president, said in a statement.

- Trump has been pressuring drugmakers through his most-favored-nation drug pricing policy to lower prices to what people pay in other high-income countries. US patients by far pay the most for prescription medicines, often nearly triple what patients pay in other developed nations.

- The announcement also comes as the White House faces pressure from consumers to lower prices amid other tariff-related price increases, as well as high gas prices triggered by the US-Israel war with Iran.

The president of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee, Wisconsin's largest mosque, was detained March 30 by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in what mosque leaders and national Muslim advocacy groups said was a politically motivated arrest intended to remove a pro-Palestinian voice from the U.S.

- Salah Sarsour, who has a volunteer position as the president of the mosque's board of directors, is a legal permanent resident who has lived in the U.S. for more than 32 years. The deportation paperwork he received when he was arrested said the federal government is holding him not because of any criminal conviction, but because Secretary of State Marco Rubio has determined Sarsour "poses an adverse consequence to foreign policy considerations," Sarsour's attorney, Munjed Ahmad said.

- A crowd numbering 600 or more gathered April 2 to rally in support of Sarsour after news broke of his arrest. Inside the Islamic Society of Milwaukee's Salam School gym, speakers led the standing-room-only crowd in chants of "Free Salah Sarsour!" and vowed to keep fighting to release him.

- Several people described him as a giant in the Milwaukee Muslim community who was honest and helpful to many. Meanwhile, several Milwaukee-area politicians condemned his detention, including U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore, Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson and Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley. The latter two attended the rally.

- "They want to criminalize advocacy for Palestine," Othman Atta, executive director of the mosque, told the crowd. "That is the only reason that he is being targeted. There is nothing else."

- Sarsour's wife and six children are U.S. citizens, Atta said. Sarsour is also a board member of American Muslims for Palestine, a national advocacy organization, and he has been a national activist on pro-Palestinian causes.

- The deportation documents do not allege Sarsour, 53, supported Hamas during his time in the U.S., Atta said. The deportation documents focus on Sarsour's arrest by Israeli authorities as a teenager living in the West Bank to argue that he provided material support for a terrorist organization. U.S. authorities have known about that arrest since Sarsour immigrated in 1993, Atta said.

- "It's absolutely false," Atta said of the claims Sarsour supported Hamas. "He is being deported because he's exercising his right of freedom of speech."

- Sarsour was also arrested for a handful of months in 1998 when he returned to the West Bank, although Atta said those charges were later dropped, and attributed the second arrest to harassment and intimidation tactics by the Israeli government.

- The Department of Homeland Security said Sarsour's two arrests, as a teen and an adult, related to "throwing a Molotov cocktail at the homes of Israeli armed forces" and, separately, "illegally attempting to possess weapons and ammunition."

- Atta said that Sarsour was convicted as a teenager in the alleged Molotov cocktail incident in an Israeli military court. The human rights group B'Tselem says military courts in the West Bank have a 96% conviction rate ⁠and a history of extracting confessions under duress or even through torture. Israel denies this.

- DHS also said that Sarsour lied on his U.S. immigration paperwork in the 1990s. Atta said that wasn't accurate, adding that U.S. immigration officials were aware of his arrests because they visited him and questioned him about them in the '90s.

- Atta argued that detaining Sarsour after three decades in which his green card was renewed repeatedly was evidence the U.S. was following the lead of the Israeli government.

- "This administration is willing to basically undermine the Constitution and the First Amendment so that they can support Israel and its actions," Atta said. "We're talking about a regime that has values absolutely inconsistent with the values we espouse [as Americans]."

- Atta compared Sarsour to Mahmoud Khalil, the Palestinian activist and permanent resident who was detained for months because the U.S. government said he was a foreign policy threat.

- ICE agents surrounded Sarsour outside a building he owns, where he was picking up mail, and detained him, Atta said. Sarsour told Atta that he counted 12 ICE vehicles.

- The agents first took Sarsour to the ICE facility in Broadview, Illinois, and he is currently being held at the Clay County Jail in Brazil, Indiana, 60 miles southwest of Indianapolis, according to the agency's online detainee locator.

- Sarsour cannot post bail to leave the detention center, Atta said, because ICE detained him on the grounds that he is a foreign policy threat. Attorneys have filed a habeas corpus petition, arguing his detention is illegal.

- "This is a guy who is a model of what it is to come to America and to do well and to thrive," Atta said.

- State records show Sarsour owns at least three furniture stores in the Milwaukee area: Galleria Furniture, on West Capitol Drive; Home Sweet Home Furniture, on South 27th Street; and Citywide Furniture, on South 16th Street. Online court records show he has been a Franklin resident in recent years.

- In addition to his six children, Sarsour has nine grandchildren and is the caretaker for his mother. His family is "extremely disturbed" by his detention, Atta said.

- His adult son, Kareem Sarsour, addressed the crowd at the rally, saying his father is a pillar in the community and their family, and they are praying for him.

- "The word 'give up' isn't in our dictionary," Kareem Sarsour said. "We will keep fighting for him."

- Ahmad, his attorney, said he spoke April 2 to Sarsour from the detention center, and he passed on a message to the crowd that he is a "tiger" and he will not go down without a fight.

- Wisconsin online court records do not show any criminal charges or convictions for Sarsour. Atta also said Sarsour doesn't have a criminal record in the U.S.

- Sarsour has been the president of the mosque's board of directors for the last five years.

- Elected officials condemn Sarsour's detention

- Sarsour's detention "is an outrage," Johnson, the Milwaukee mayor, said. "There is no substantive evidence he has done anything wrong. I have spoken about the overreach and harm from the U.S. immigration authorities. This is another shameful example."

- State Sen. Chris Larson, D-Milwaukee, said the Trump administration has already targeted several Muslim activists for their beliefs.

- "Unconstitutional assaults on our freedoms should alarm all of us. When any individual or group is targeted by the government for their speech, all of our freedoms are threatened," he said in a statement.

- Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley said in a statement that Sarsour's arrest "is an affront to everything Milwaukee stands for."

- "Let's be clear about what happened here: Agents did not stumble upon Mr. Sarsour," said Crowley, who is running for governor. "They followed him and monitored him based on his profile and the community he leads. That is religious profiling and government surveillance of a faith community happening right here in Milwaukee, and this administration expects us to simply accept it."

- State Rep. Ryan Clancy, D-Milwaukee, said the federal government has given "no valid reason" for detaining Sarsour.

- "We should retain and celebrate the right of all people to criticize our government, no matter how unpleasant people in power find it," he said in a statement.