• Latest
  • Trending
  • All
  • Market Updates
  • Cryptocurrency
  • Blockchain
  • Investing
  • Commodities
  • Personal Finance
  • Technology
  • Business
  • Real Estate
  • Finance
Copper tariffs are the wrong answer to the right question

Copper tariffs are the wrong answer to the right question

July 10, 2025
The US throws a lifeline to the green hydrogen industry — will it be enough?

The US throws a lifeline to the green hydrogen industry — will it be enough?

July 10, 2025
The frightening world without the dollar

The frightening world without the dollar

July 10, 2025
Tokenised money market funds: pseudo-money

Tokenised money market funds: pseudo-money

July 10, 2025
selling new shares to pay dividends

selling new shares to pay dividends

July 10, 2025
OPEC slashes global oil demand forecasts for the coming years in latest outlook report

OPEC slashes global oil demand forecasts for the coming years in latest outlook report

July 10, 2025
Bitcoin Soared—But Mainstream News Was Missing In Action, Study Reveals

Bitcoin Soared—But Mainstream News Was Missing In Action, Study Reveals

July 10, 2025
Watch: Google DeepMind CEO and AI Nobel winner Demis Hassabis on CBS’ ’60 Minutes’

Open vs. closed models: AI leaders from GM, Zoom and IBM weigh trade-offs for enterprise use

July 10, 2025
DHS corrects data error: International student enrollment rises

DHS corrects data error: International student enrollment rises

July 10, 2025
15 Easiest Items To Sell That You Already Own for Quick Cash

15 Easiest Items To Sell That You Already Own for Quick Cash

July 10, 2025
Trump threatens to impose 50% tariff on Brazil

Trump threatens to impose 50% tariff on Brazil

July 10, 2025

EU is “working non-stop” to strike an agreement with the US – von der Leyen

July 10, 2025
Ripple CEO Predicts $2 Trillion Stablecoin Market Growth

Ripple CEO Predicts $2 Trillion Stablecoin Market Growth

July 10, 2025
Thursday, July 10, 2025
No Result
View All Result
InvestorNewsToday.com
  • Home
  • Market
  • Business
  • Finance
  • Investing
  • Real Estate
  • Commodities
  • Crypto
  • Blockchain
  • Personal Finance
  • Tech
InvestorNewsToday.com
No Result
View All Result
Home Market Updates

Copper tariffs are the wrong answer to the right question

by Investor News Today
July 10, 2025
in Market Updates
0
Copper tariffs are the wrong answer to the right question
491
SHARES
1.4k
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter


Unlock the Editor’s Digest without spending a dime

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favorite tales on this weekly publication.

Uncle Sam has a copper drawback. In very spherical numbers, the US produces 1mn tonnes of the crimson steel, and consumes 2mn. The deficit is crammed from abroad, creating a possible geopolitical vulnerability. But even throughout the US, there’s ample copper to go spherical, for these courageous, wealthy and affected person sufficient to extract it — particularly if cheaper imports all of the sudden lose their attract. A case, then, for tariffs.

That, a minimum of, is the logic from the White Home. President Donald Trump has pledged to slap levies on imports of copper, having already recognized the steel as a vital enter for American prosperity. That drove the worth of copper futures on US markets up by nearly a fifth on Tuesday. In fact, a mooted blanket 50 per cent tariff is unlikely to be the ultimate consequence. Now come the negotiations and capitulations.

Column chart of US copper consumption outstrips supply (thousands of tonnes) showing In the red

There’s a respectable drawback to be solved. Copper, whereas ample, is more and more costly and arduous to extract. For years, it has been obvious {that a} provide crunch looms, with pure progress in demand amplified by the transition to inexperienced vitality and “electrification”. For instance, an electrical car makes use of 2.5 occasions as a lot copper as a petroleum guzzler, estimates S&P International.

Now, there are different pressures too. Synthetic intelligence, with its reliance on knowledge centres and thirst for energy, has created a brand new client of copper. Rising defence budgets add additional pressures. However whereas mining is turning into a matter of urgency, new ones can take a long time and billions of {dollars}. Decision, a website owned by Rio Tinto and BHP, could possibly be the most important copper mine within the US, however has been snared in authorized disputes for years.

Chart showing projected mined copper supply and demand (in megatonnes) from 2024 to 2040

Tariffs might — in concept — incentivise new manufacturing, by pushing up the worth. BlackRock has estimated that $12,000 per tonne is the worth at which digging begins to look financially viable, and after Trump mentioned he could be “doing copper”, that’s roughly the place the US value sits. However commerce levies are a blunt device. And so they have a deadly flaw: miners plan their funding over a long time, whereas tariffs can vanish with the stroke of a pen.

Moreover, getting copper out of the bottom is simply the primary drawback. The second is making it usable. The US barely smelts copper nowadays, because it’s usually an costly, soiled and unpopular course of. That exercise has shifted wholesale to China, which now smelts nearly half of the world’s provide, in contrast with 3 per cent within the US, in response to the US Geological Survey. Some American smelters have been repurposed as knowledge centres.

That doesn’t imply “doing copper” is futile. Subsidies have their place. And whereas miners want years of certainty to interrupt floor, technologists aren’t such sticklers. Firms like Freeport-McMoran, and BHP-backed start-up Ceibo, are tinkering with new methods to extract and refine extra copper from present mines. Larger costs might give them a fillip. Tariffs are a foul option to remedy the supply-demand drawback, however an honest option to focus minds.

john.foley@ft.com



Source link

Tags: answercopperQuestiontariffsWrong
Share196Tweet123
Previous Post

RBA advances wholesale CBDC trials with industry partners

Next Post

Hedge funds to blame for coffee price surge, says Lavazza boss

Investor News Today

Investor News Today

Next Post
Hedge funds to blame for coffee price surge, says Lavazza boss

Hedge funds to blame for coffee price surge, says Lavazza boss

  • Trending
  • Comments
  • Latest
Equinor scales back renewables push 7 years after ditching ‘oil’ from its name

Equinor scales back renewables push 7 years after ditching ‘oil’ from its name

February 5, 2025
Niels Troost has a staggering story to tell about how he got sanctioned

Niels Troost has a staggering story to tell about how he got sanctioned

December 14, 2024
Best High-Yield Savings Accounts & Rates for January 2025

Best High-Yield Savings Accounts & Rates for January 2025

January 3, 2025
Suleiman Levels limited V 3.00 Update and Offer – Analytics & Forecasts – 5 January 2025

Suleiman Levels limited V 3.00 Update and Offer – Analytics & Forecasts – 5 January 2025

January 5, 2025
Why America’s economy is soaring ahead of its rivals

Why America’s economy is soaring ahead of its rivals

0
Dollar climbs after Donald Trump’s Brics tariff threat and French political woes

Dollar climbs after Donald Trump’s Brics tariff threat and French political woes

0
Nato chief Mark Rutte’s warning to Trump

Nato chief Mark Rutte’s warning to Trump

0
Top Federal Reserve official warns progress on taming US inflation ‘may be stalling’

Top Federal Reserve official warns progress on taming US inflation ‘may be stalling’

0
The US throws a lifeline to the green hydrogen industry — will it be enough?

The US throws a lifeline to the green hydrogen industry — will it be enough?

July 10, 2025
The frightening world without the dollar

The frightening world without the dollar

July 10, 2025
Tokenised money market funds: pseudo-money

Tokenised money market funds: pseudo-money

July 10, 2025
selling new shares to pay dividends

selling new shares to pay dividends

July 10, 2025

Live Prices

© 2024 Investor News Today

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Market
  • Business
  • Finance
  • Investing
  • Real Estate
  • Commodities
  • Crypto
  • Blockchain
  • Personal Finance
  • Tech

© 2024 Investor News Today