Copper Tariff Confusion

Copper, a metal vital to so many industries is in Trump Tariff Shock.  Doesn’t anyone in Washington, District of Crooks, think things through anymore, before playing Russian roulette with vital industries and jobs?

Copper Market in Turmoil as Trump Touts 50% Tariff on US Imports

9 July 2025

(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump sowed chaos in metals markets by indicating the US would implement a higher-than-expected 50% tariff on copper imports, spurring a record spike in New York futures and a drop in the global benchmark.

The plan, announced in an apparently off-the-cuff comment to reporters, marks the latest twist in a tumultuous period for industrial commodities, as the US leader aims to encourage more mining and smelting at home. He’s already raised fees on steel and aluminum imports, while probes into flows of multiple other metals are in train.

Since February, when Trump declared “it’s time for copper to come home” and aired the potential for levies, global traders have sent record volumes of the metal to the US to get ahead of implementation. A 50% tariff — which could be in place within weeks — signals an imminent end to that trade but injects new uncertainties, including on timing and potential exemptions for some large producers.

Citigroup Inc. called it a watershed moment for copper, closing the window for significant shipments into the US market.

“The degree of impact will heavily depend on the details,” said Marcus Garvey, Macquarie Group’s head of commodities strategy. “Not only the rate of any tariff but which forms of copper it is applied to, and whether or not there is any grace period ahead of its implementation.”

If the tariff takes hold, it will inflict higher costs across a broad section of the US economy due to the myriad of industries and applications that rely on copper — even as Trump piles pressure on the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates. US buyers have already warned that the measure risks undermining Trump’s core ambitions to revive manufacturing and challenge China’s industrial might.

“The US does not have nearly enough mine/smelter/refinery capacity to be self-sufficient in copper,” Jefferies LLC analysts including Christopher LaFemina wrote in a note. “As a result, import tariffs are likely to lead to continued significant price premiums in the US relative to other regions.”

Immediate price action in New York and London reflected expectations for a tighter US market, but more plentiful supply elsewhere. Contracts on the Comex surged to an unprecedented 25% premium over London Metal Exchange prices — the global benchmark — in the aftermath of Trump’s comments.

Copper climbed as much as 17% in New York on Tuesday, a record one-day spike to an all-time high, before falling more than 4% in early trading on Wednesday. On the LME, the metal slid as much as 2.4% at the open, before easing to change hands at $9,653 a ton, 1.4% lower, at 1:08 p.m. in Singapore.

“The tariff increase is a bearish factor for LME copper prices in the near term,” said Yongcheng Zhao, principal analyst of the China copper market at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence. “We expect continued volatility until the tariff officially kicks in, followed by the potential for a sharp decline.”

Trump’s 50% pledge comes as copper demand is expected to surge over the coming decade, with data centers, automakers, power companies and others scouring the globe for feedstock. Retooling power and transportation systems to run on renewable energy will require far more copper than the companies that produce it are currently committed to deliver.

Significant Premiums

The path toward greater US self-reliance in copper is a fraught one for the US given the paucity of existing capacity and the challenges in building new plants. Net copper imports account for 36% of demand, according to Morgan Stanley research.

“The longer term aim of the Trump administration may be for the US to be fully self-sufficient in copper, but mines take too long to develop for this to be achieved in less than a 10-year time horizon,” Jefferies analysts wrote. “The US will still rely on foreign mines to meet demand for the foreseeable future.”

Elaborating on Trump’s copper comments, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick later said the levy would be in place in late July or by August 1. There were no details, including on which particular products would be hit by the tariff rate, or whether there could be exemptions for large producers like Chile.

Many analysts and traders had been expecting tariffs at the relatively lower level of 25%, and the higher threshold means those carve-outs become more important. The massive flow of copper to the US this year also means the market there is relatively well-supplied for now.

“A 50% tariff is arguably comparatively bearish,” Macquarie’s Garvey said. “It would be more demand destructive at the margin in the US and extends the period of working down excess inventory.”

The global copper industry has been bracing for the levies since February, when Trump ordered the Commerce Department to lay out the case for imposing them on national-security grounds as part of a review under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act. It had until later in the year to complete the investigation.

Copper Market in Turmoil as Trump Touts 50% Tariff on US Imports

Blackout crisis looms as Americans face full month of outages plunging hospitals into shutdowns

July 8, 2025

Millions of Americans may soon face nearly a full month of power blackouts each year, disrupting daily life, businesses, and critical services across the country.

White House officials warned on Monday that the retiring power plants and soaring electricity demand could push the US grid to its limits, triggering over 800 hours of power outages annually.

Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Chris Wright said: 'In the coming years, America’s reindustrialization and the AI race will require a significantly larger supply of around-the-clock, reliable, and uninterrupted power. 

'President Trump’s administration is committed to advancing a strategy of energy addition, and supporting all forms of energy that are affordable, reliable, and secure.' 

Meanwhile, critics argue the DOE report leans heavily into political messaging and fails to fully acknowledge progress being made in clean energy and battery storage.

Caitlin Marquis of Advanced Energy United said:'It underestimates advances in battery storage and renewable integration.'

'Regions like Texas have shown that solar and wind, paired with batteries, can improve reliability while lowering costs,' she said. 

The DOE's latest findings appear to pave the way for extending the life of aging coal and gas plants well beyond their originally planned shutdowns.

Trump is moving to reverse many of former President Joe Biden's clean energy initiatives, including relaxing emissions limits on coal and expanding federal drilling leases for oil and gas.

The president has also rolled back several environmental protections aimed at curbing fossil fuel dependency. 

'The US cannot afford to continue down the unstable and dangerous path of energy subtraction previous leaders pursued,' said Wright.

Among the most dramatic claims, the DOE estimates that continued power plant retirements could trigger a 100-fold increase in blackout hours over the next five years.

Even if no additional plants shut down, some areas of the country could still see a 34-fold spike in outages due to rising demand.

John Moura, director at the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), warned: 'We're seeing demand growth like we haven't seen in decades, and our infrastructure is not being built fast enough to keep up.'

Much of that demand is being fueled by the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence. Data centers already consume about four percent of the nation's electricity, and that could more than double by 2030.

That growth adds enormous pressure on the grid. DOE officials say meeting that demand will require substantial investment in stable, 24/7 power sources.

Manu Asthana, CEO of PJM, said: 'AI is going to change our world... But balancing reliability and affordability is getting harder.'

According to the Energy Department (DOE), the grid is expected to add 209 gigawatts of new power capacity by 2030, enough to meet most of the country's needs. 

To put that into perspective, 209 gigawatts could power roughly 150 million homes. 

However, only 22 gigawatts of that will come from around-the-clock sources like coal, gas, or nuclear energy. That's barely enough to replace the 104 gigawatts of firm, base-load generation scheduled to retire over the same period.

Grid operators are increasingly worried that if coal and gas plants continue to retire without adequate replacements, the grid could become dangerously unstable.

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Blackout crisis looms as Americans face full month of outages plunging hospitals into shutdowns

What do you call a politician who doesn’t cheat? A myth.