Bellevue Healthcare Trust Factsheet January 2025
Welcome to our first update of 2025. Life under Trump 2.0 is
proving to be as fast paced and uncertain as anyone could have
reasonably imagined. The first salvos of a global trade war have
been unleashed, and then partially retracted. Where we go from
here is anyone’s guess. Is this the trade equivalent of gunboat
diplomacy, Trump showing his actually a weak paper tiger or a
return to 1930s economic orthodoxy? (We all know how the latter
went).
The impact of all of this on the healthcare sector is yet to be
determined; supply chains are often longer and more complex than
anyone realised before trying to unwind them. Yet, at the same
time, there is a cogent argument for excluding such products of
necessity (there again, food is quite essential, and it has not been
excluded as yet). Even so, Trump has made specific comments
about pharmaceutical production needing to ‘come home’.
Whatever form they take, the economic impact of tariffs is bound
to be negative overall; they are the antithesis of free trade. Prices
will rise and discretionary demand will likely fall at the margin, as
more goes toward food and financing costs. Defensive sectors may well offer a safe port in this storm, although healthcare must
contend with inevitable changes to entitlement programmes like
Medicaid and potentially RFK Jr too.
proving to be as fast paced and uncertain as anyone could have
reasonably imagined. The first salvos of a global trade war have
been unleashed, and then partially retracted. Where we go from
here is anyone’s guess. Is this the trade equivalent of gunboat
diplomacy, Trump showing his actually a weak paper tiger or a
return to 1930s economic orthodoxy? (We all know how the latter
went).
The impact of all of this on the healthcare sector is yet to be
determined; supply chains are often longer and more complex than
anyone realised before trying to unwind them. Yet, at the same
time, there is a cogent argument for excluding such products of
necessity (there again, food is quite essential, and it has not been
excluded as yet). Even so, Trump has made specific comments
about pharmaceutical production needing to ‘come home’.
Whatever form they take, the economic impact of tariffs is bound
to be negative overall; they are the antithesis of free trade. Prices
will rise and discretionary demand will likely fall at the margin, as
more goes toward food and financing costs. Defensive sectors may well offer a safe port in this storm, although healthcare must
contend with inevitable changes to entitlement programmes like
Medicaid and potentially RFK Jr too.
06.02.2025