Trump Initiates Chips and Drug Probes Ahead of More Tariffs (2)

President Donald Trump’s administration pressed forward with plans to impose tariffs on semiconductor and pharmaceutical imports by initiating trade probes led by the Commerce Department.

The moves, announced Monday in the Federal Register, are a precursor to imposing tariffs and threaten to broaden the president’s sweeping US trade war.

The Commerce Department said it had begun investigating the impact on US national security of “imports of semiconductors and semiconductor manufacturing equipment” as well as “pharmaceuticals and pharmaceutical ingredients, including finished drug products” in a pair of register notices.

The probes, which began April 1 and ...