Copper to be levied at 50 per cent from August 1: Trump

Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social that he had received a national security report underlining the importance of copper.

The US will impose 50 per cent tariffs on global imports of copper effective on August 1, President Donald Trump has announced.

Mr Trump on Tuesday (local time) told reporters he would set the 50 per cent tariff on the metal, sending copper prices soaring to historic highs. On Wednesday evening, he wrote on his Truth Social platform that the tariffs would be effective on the first of next month, the same day he has scheduled his so-called reciprocal tariffs to go into effect under a separate legal authority.

Mr Trump wrote that he had received a national security report underlining the importance of copper, but it remains unclear when the action will be officially published in the Federal Register.

On Truth Social the President wrote: “Copper is necessary for Semiconductors, Aircraft, Ships, Ammunition, Data Centers, Lithium-ion Batteries, Radar Systems, Missile Defense Systems, and even, Hypersonic Weapons, of which we are building many. Copper is the second most used material by the Department of Defense! Why did our foolish (and SLEEPY!) “Leaders” decimate this important Industry?”

The announcement came after the US President slapped Brazil with 50 per cent tariffs on all goods and wrote to seven smaller US trading partners alerting them to new tariffs.

None of the countries targeted in the first batch of letters – The Philippines, Brunei, Moldova, Algeria, Libya, Iraq and Sri Lanka – is a major industrial rival to the US.

Imports from Libya, Iraq, Algeria and Sri Lanka would be taxed at 30 per cent, those from Moldova and Brunei at 25 per cent and those from The Philippines at 20 per cent. The tariffs would start on August 1.

It’s a sign that the President, who has openly expressed his love for the word “tariff”, is still infatuated with the idea that taxing trade will create prosperity for America.

Most economic analyses say the tariffs will worsen inflationary pressures and subtract from economic growth, but Mr Trump has used the taxes as a way to assert the diplomatic and financial power of the US over both rivals and allies.

His administration is promising the taxes on imports will lower trade imbalances, offset some of the cost of the tax cuts he signed into law on Friday, and cause factory jobs to return to the US.

During a White House meeting with African leaders, Mr Trump talked up trade as a diplomatic tool. Trade, he said, “seems to be a foundation” for him to settle disputes between India and Pakistan, as well as Kosovo and Serbia.

“You guys are going to fight, we’re not going to trade,” Mr Trump said. “And we seem to be quite successful in doing that.”

Mr Trump said the tariff rates in his letters were based on “common sense” and trade imbalances, adding that he would be sending a letter on Wednesday or Thursday to Brazil. He suggested he had not thought of penalising the countries whose leaders were meeting with him in the Oval Office – Liberia, Senegal, Gabon, Mauritania and Guinea-Bissau – as “these are friends of mine now”.

Officials for the European Union, a major trade partner and source of Mr Trump’s ire on trade, said on Tuesday they are not expecting to receive a letter listing tariff rates. The Republican President started the process of announcing tariff rates on Monday by hitting two major US trading partners, Japan and South Korea, with import taxes of 25 per cent.

The letters were posted on Truth Social after the expiration of a 90-day negotiating period with a baseline levy of 10 per cent. Mr Trump is giving countries more time to negotiate with his August 1 deadline, but he has insisted there will be no extensions for the countries that receive letters.

EU chief trade negotiator Maros Sefcovic told EU politicians in Strasbourg, France, on Wednesday the EU had been spared the increased tariffs contained in the letters sent by Mr Trump and that an extension of talks until August 1 would provide “additional space to reach a satisfactory conclusion”.