It’s 200 percent on pharmaceuticals with a grace period.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent talked Trump into another delay, but Trump plows ahead on copper.
The Wall Street Journal reports Trump Delayed Reciprocal Tariffs After Bessent Wanted More Time on Deals
President Trump decided to delay the implementation of his so-called reciprocal tariffs to Aug. 1 after advisers including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told him he could get trade deals with more time, according to people familiar with the matter.
Trump had mused publicly about moving away from notching agreements to avert tariffs. His inclination to let the tariffs snap into effect shifted after he heard from Bessent that some deals were close but needed more time. Bessent was a key aide who successfully convinced Trump to place the initial 90-day pause on his April “Liberation Day” tariffs that rattled global markets.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick later said on CNBC that 15 to 20 new tariff letters to world leaders can be expected to be posted online in the next two days.
Trump, long a vocal advocate of the use of tariffs, said he was eager to place tariffs on a wave of countries, despite his new executive order. “TARIFFS WILL START BEING PAID ON AUGUST 1, 2025. There has been no change to this date, and there will be no change,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Tuesday. During a cabinet meeting Tuesday, he asserted that his letters to other nations constituted a pact on bilateral commerce: “A letter means a deal,” he said, while noting that his team continues to negotiate with other nations.
Trump on Tuesday also previewed other tariffs imposed under a separate legal authority, saying he would impose 50% tariffs on copper and up to 200% tariffs on pharmaceuticals, citing national-security concerns. Companies would be given up to a year and a half to relocate pharmaceutical supply chains before levies would take effect.
Copper Imports Mostly from Americas
Reuters addresses the question Where Does the US Get its Copper?
U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday said he planned to announce a 50% tariff on copper imports later in the day, surprising a global industry whose output is critical to electric vehicles, military hardware, semiconductors and a wide range of consumer goods.
The United States produces domestically just over half the refined copper it consumes each year. More than two-thirds of that is mined in Arizona, where the development of a massive new mine has been stalled for more than a decade. The remaining refined copper, just shy of 1 million metric tons annually, is imported.
Latin America and Congo Copper
How Many People Are Employed in US Copper Mining?
In the U.S., approximately 12,000 people are directly employed in primary copper mining. This number excludes those working in supporting industries like equipment manufacturing, maintenance, and transportation, which are estimated to be 2-3 times the number of direct mining jobs. The broader copper, nickel, lead, and zinc mining industry in the US employs around 13,693 people.
The above clip is from AI.
How Many Jobs Will Trump Create?
Assuming the US produces all the copper it needs, the answer is hugely negative.
Perhaps mining industry employment doubles, if and when US mines get into production.
But that is dwarfed by users of copper, all paying a higher price.
- Building Construction:This sector accounts for the largest share of copper consumption in the US, with around 45% of the total, according to Statista.
- Electrical and Electronic Products: This sector uses around 22% of the copper consumed in the US, according to Statista.
- Transportation: Copper is also used in transportation equipment, although the exact percentage varies year to year.
- Other uses:Copper is also used in consumer and general products, as well as industrial machinery and equipment.
Seriously Idiotic
This copper tariff is seriously idiotic. And it follows on the heels of idiotic tariffs on steel.
Powell is correct to be worried about a surge in inflation.
Related Posts
February, 11, 2025: Trump’s Steel Tariffs Now Will Work as Good as the First Time
Q: How’s that? A: Very poorly.
March 13, 2025: The Amazing “Success” of Trump’s 2018 Aluminum Tariffs in One Picture
I hope you can take a bit of headline sarcasm because the true story follows.
May 31, 2025: Trump Will Double Steel and Aluminum Tariffs to 50 Percent
Tariff madness continues.
The 50% tariff on copper is a declaration of war on American electrical infrastructure builders, home builders and manufacturers of electronics.
It is a war against the EV industry, the modernization of our grid and the efficiency of electrical energy.
Any company trying to move manufacturing home will now see a significant increase in building costs and, if producing items containing copper, will see their raw materials costs rise and products become uncompetitive in the global markets.
Foreign producers of products that contain copper have just been gifted a huge competitive cost advantage.
There are no advantages for anyone in the U.S. with the exception of a few profiteers. Perhaps Trump informed a few of his sycophants of the new tariff in advance and they are the ones that made huge profits off of this announcement?
No wonder he gutted the SEC!
Hahahaha! What a show!
Trump, and many of his supporters who comment here, seem to believe that tariffs will increase US production of EVERYTHING.
Commodities like steel, aluminum, copper, rare earths.
Manufacturing like autos, auto parts, appliances etc.
Electronics like apple iPhones, televisions etc.
Energy, like oil, gas, coal and electricity.
Let’s have a look at whether tariffs will accomplish this.
Start with copper. We produce and recycle close to 50% of the copper we use. We import the remaining 50% of the Cu we use because we cannot produce enough ourselves profitably. We have already mined most of the easily accessible copper deposits in the US. There is not much left to mine. In addition, we do not have the domestic smelters necessary to process what we do mine. We actually export 30% of the copper that we mine for refining in other countries.
Putting tariffs on imported copper could theoretically incentivize more marginal US production, but certainly not enough to meet our needs. And it is hard to imagine companies investing billions to develop new mines that will take a decade to start producing, and be uncompetitive unless tariffs remain in effect a decade from now. The same goes for new copper refining facilities.
In the meantime, while we wait a decade for perhaps a little bit of new copper production, we will put 50% tariffs on all imported copper. This copper is being imported by US companies to be used in whatever they are producing. Putting a 50% tariff on their copper imports will only make them less competitive in world markets, because their competitors in other countries do not have to pay 50% tariffs on copper. And Trump wants to keep the tariffs on until we are self sufficient in copper! Lol!
In terms of aluminum, we do not even mine the bauxite needed to make aluminum in the US. We have little to no bauxite. We can import the bauxite (and alumina) from Jamaica and Brazil and then refine it here. However, the major cost of producing aluminum is electricity. And the electricity in the US is too expensive. Which is why we have gone from 32 aluminum smelters to 4 over the last 4 decades. We cannot compete because of our high electricity costs.
We could produce more aluminum domestically if we imported a lot more bauxite AND provided huge amounts of heavily subsidized electricity to new smelters that might be built. One aluminum smelter uses more electricity than the city of Boston. And we need ten of them. Which means we also need to generate a lot more electricity; ideally from new hydro or nuclear facilities. Too bad we don’t have any planned in the next decade. We could also get more cheap electricity from new solar and wind farms. Too bad Trump is trying to stop these.
Similarly, Tariffs on aluminum will not produce any new US aluminum production till after 2030. And that is being optimistic. In the meantime we will force all those US companies that need to import aluminum to pay a 50% tariff, which makes them less competitive.
And now Trump wants to put additional 50% tariffs on Brazil. You can’t make this stuff up.
Exactly,
Trump is making U.S. producers of electronic and electrical goods uncompetitive by raising their costs.
Either stupid or malicious.
My vote is malicious…
<
I will go with stupid.
Too targeted to only be stupid. But I’d bet good money that either of us could take Trump in a game of checkers.
If we played chess, he would simply tip the board over when the rules were explained…
>
Who does Trump work for?
NOT Americans!!!
<
Who do presidents work for? Not Usonians!
More of the very soggy TACO announcements might at least boost the income of traders for a few days.
Tell me about the pre-zinc value of United States pennies. The copper ones.
“When a candidate for public office faces the voters, he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any…
All the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre, the man who can most easily adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum…
On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
(H.L. Mencken, 1920)
It is the same kind of feedback/dynamic driving so much of the “news” to be indistinguishable from lurid tabloids. It is jumping from one news source to the next.
Did China buy an extraordinarily large amount of $TRUMP coin to convince Trump to destroy the US economy?
Nah. The Beltway running rate is a weekend in Vegas with an escort.
Did they offer him a cut under the table of elevated rare earths revenues?
Arizonan here and I sell a lot of copper products in my business. I am not a climate change kook nor against the mining industry. But the strip mines down in southern AZ are a massive eye sore and destroy the landscape. If you go up the Coronado trail to Clifton and Morenci, The massive leach fields go out into the landscape. Go up to Superior and you see the same thing. I am completely fine with letting Chile strip mine their land for as long as we can.
We were just having a discussion on what this will mean. If copper tube goes up even more than it has, jobs will start to move to plastics ILO of copper. Or larger jobs will just be cost prohibitive and put on hold. We are already seeing that now.
Imagine if will have no copper imports at all because they are cut off by war. Your visual objections to increasing copper supply in the US don’t count for anything. There are other trails but copper is rare.
We are going to go to war with South America? Putin is invading Argentina next? Better get Z on the phone LOL! Your twisting my statement to an extent. All the veins may very well be underground as IE the Copper Queen mine that ran in Bisbee for decades was but most are strip mined. I don’t know and neither do you where the deposits lie. I say let someone tear up their country first before we tear up ours. If we need to now then I guess that is how it is. Driving the price of copper up is not helping our economy. 14/2 romex is already under lock and key at the home centers because the price is out of control.
“ Imagine if will have no copper imports at all because they are cut off by war.”
Lol!
Most of our copper imports comes from Chile and Canada.
Dumb F*ck.
We’re at war with Chile?
I believe the massive deposit is going to be a underground mine. I assume Trump will try to expedite, but there’s massive opposition. It will be another court injunction against trump.
I have no idea where the deposits are, I am not a geologist and you maybe be quite right. I do know in Superior that there is a bunch of BLM land that was under dispute to be used for a new open pit for years. At one time I don’t believe the state of AZ would oppose new operations but now as left as the state is headed I don’t think that is the case.
I’m sure a new truth social post will give us the skinny at some point.
The first of many similar tariff announcements to come. However, will TACO continue to capitulate on every one?
Yes.
Theis is massively ignorant to think we need to produce ALL our own copper. Our limited resources have been cherry-picked for decades and nothing compared to other deposits elsewhere. WE CAN NOT MAKE UP THAT SLACK.Stupidest of all – why should we? Let other country’s poor populations have a dirty job and do it.
Futher, this will be like a massive tax on EVs and all the green things we inevitably need to do. We only hurt ourselves.
Rather, the state hurts the people. Now as ever in human history.
I love it when Trump enacts all of these tariffs and then he threatens private companies not to raise prices. What is the definition of fascism?
The Red Queen (Lewis Carroll version) would be able to make it happen!
Certainly the croquet hoops are walking all over the place!
Trump just gave a huge gift to China’s economyChinese manufacturers are already dominating clean tech industries. The GOP’s huge new tax and spending law will make it even harder for U.S. companies to compete.
https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2025/07/trump-just-gave-a-huge-gift-to-chinas-economy/
Markets are on tenterhooks as the new 50% tariff on copper causes
further upset. We produce roughly half of the copper we use so the silo thinkers are worried it will take years to expand our mining industry to meet our needs and the price will skyrocket. Maybe another reason is in the DJT mind such as getting
the exporters’ attention and forcing them to the games they play with our products? Keep your powder dry, it’s early innings still.
BTW, the initial spike in copper prices has reversed since the foreign markets opened.
By producing in China the pharmaceutical industry has lowered its costs but those savings were never passed on to the consumer but used to pad their margins. It’s the same for using Ireland.
Why would they move production offshore just to give the increased profits back to the consumer if they didn’t have to? That is shareholder value and capitalism, correct?
– Why would they move production offshore just to give the increased profits back to the consumer if they didn’t have to? > A host of reasons, but it depends on the product/service does it not? This is in direct regards to Pharmaceutical Products. A much needed and desired item, that we should not be keeping prices high for profit, but bad for its patients. Why would a company close up shop in America, and off shore the jobs for savings, but still then charge the unemployed worker they tossed out, the same cost? Why not share some of that savings to allow the laid of workers a chance at being able to afford there medicines?
– That is shareholder value and capitalism, correct?> “Greed is Pure Evil” Saving money on medicine, and letting go your workers to do so, and then not passing on any of the savings is not capitalism the way I was taught it. That’s taken advantage of a situation, to earn more money, and screw the people who need the medicine, but now may not be able to afford it. I know, the company will say, let the Government Supplement it for them then, so they can continue to make more and more money, but then it’s also the backs of Taxpayers too… Sick!!!
I save significant money on imported Indian drugs. They have some of the world’s cheapest generic producers. Dr Reddy (pharma co) is a big old one among many.
Feels like even when things look up for Trump he finds new ways to screw it all up.
The Supreme court : federal agencies allow mass firing. RE construction plunged.
The US treasury will cease printing pennies (copper) in 2026. Printing physical
currencies accelerated in the last three months to $2.4T, while QT is on. Printing
pennies reserves increased copper prices ?
The US gov debt is $36T. Electronic printing dwarf physical currencies printing. Printing unlimited physical currencies ($1, $10, $20, $100…) cause inflation. Inflation is only % bc the Fed controls electronic printing.
A huge amount of new money enters the system via fractional reserve lending by banks.
The Fed abolished the need for any reserve some time ago I believe….
Copper usage in pennies is irrelevant.
“The 3.2 billion pennies minted in 2024 have a face value of $32 million and cost the government – and taxpayers – about $118 million to make.
Only about $1.8 million worth of copper went into those pennies – 198 metric tons at an average cost of $8,889, according to the Mint.
That’s about 0.02% of annual U.S. copper production.”
https://www.tucsonsentinel.com/local/report/021225_trump_copper/order-end-minting-pennies-will-save-taxpayers-millions-without-much-impact-az-copper-mines/
Pennies are no longer primarily made from copper. Haven’t been in decades (1982).
They are now 97.5% Zinc and 2.5% copper.
Older pennies, minted before 1982, were primarily copper (95% copper, 5% zinc). However, due to the rising cost of copper, the U.S. Mint switched to a copper-plated zinc composition in 1982. Now, pennies are made of 97.5% zinc and 2.5% copper plating.