President Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday in which he led his trade secretary Howard Lutnick to start an investigation into whether the foreign production of buyer and import of material in the United States is risks for the economic and national security of America.
White House officials said that, depending on the results of the research, new rates can be applied to copper, a material used on a large scale in production and construction and crucial for the US Army and emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence.
Civil servants of the White House were scarce on details during a call with reporters on Tuesday afternoon, even when the investigation could be concluded, which tariff rates can be set at or when they would come into effect. It would all be discovered in “Trump Time,” an official said repeatedly, which apparently meant quickly.
The potential rates would help to protect the domestic copper industry that the White House says it has been undermined by unfair commercial practices by other countries and is struggling to compete. Copper is, among other things, an essential part of building ships, planes and tanks. The Trump administration set up on Tuesday as a matter of national defense as much as an economic, and said that the metals would be needed for electric vehicles and AI and that geopolitical unrest could break the United States of required necessities.
“Rates can help build our American copper industry, if necessary, and strengthen our national defense,” said Mr. Lutnick. “American industries depend on copper and it must be made in America – no exemptions, no exceptions.”
“It's time for copper to get home,” he added.
Just like the rates about steel and aluminum that President Trump promises to recover next month, copper rates will increase the costs for a variety of other industries that depend on the metal and pushback of them. This includes makers of cars, electronics and telecommunications equipment, as well as construction companies that use copper for sanitary facilities, roof construction and other use.
The rates can also stimulate new fights with countries that send metal to the United States. The largest foreign copper source in America is Chile, which sends $ 4.63 billion from the metal to the United States every year, followed by Canada, Peru, Mexico and the Democratic Republic of Congo. China is also an important global producer of copper, but sends relatively little to the United States because of previously imposed rates.
White House officials say that Chinese copper production still has lowered global prices and that China had collected copper sources worldwide.
Peter Navarro, a senior counselor for trade and production, said in the call with reporters on Tuesday that China “had long been using industrial overcapacity and dumping as an economic weapon to dominate global markets” and systematically undermines competitors from other countries.
“It now uses the same model to get control over the copper markets in the world,” he said.
Asked how the president had chosen to record the issue of buyer, one of the Trump administration officials said in the call that Mr. Trump has problems that others would miss. The official referred to an interview from the 1980s, in which Mr Trump spoke with Oprah Winfrey about trade with Japan. The official said that exchange proposed how the president would think of retribution against foreign governments that 'cheat' the United States.
Mr. Trump has threatened to impose rates on various input, including steel, aluminum, copper, cars and medicines. He also arrived within a few hours earlier this month after the imposition of rates at Canada and Mexico, and said that the countries did not do enough to stop the flow of drugs and migrants to the United States. He paused those rates for a month, but said this week that they would come into effect on March 4 as planned.
Mr. Trump also imposed an extra rate of 10 percent on all products from China, which caused profitable rates of the Chinese. And he has introduced a plan to drastically reform the American rates in other countries, by changing them to answer the tariff levels that other countries charge the United States, and to catch certain trade behavior that he considers unfair.
The copper investigation will be conducted on the basis of section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act, which enables the president to impose rates on foreign products in the interest of national security. According to the law, the trade secretary has 270 days to present findings from the investigation to the president.
The copper prices have risen this year prior to the expected rates and continuous resilience in the production activities, according to a memorandum earlier this month of analysts at Citi. The United States consumed around $ 17 billion in the buyer in 2024 and imported around 45 percent of that amount, the analysts said.
Rebecca F. Elliott contributed reporting.
