John Carl,
Editor
April 11, 2025
The tariff headlines don’t seem to stop!
I’ve lost track of what the current rate is on China — with some levies compounding and contradicting each other, it’s now up to 145%. Maybe. Probably.
Trump is playing tough and will likely keep playing tough until China budges.
When will that be?
Who knows.
There’s so much posturing from both sides that it’s difficult to say where this will end up.
The markets are losing patience with this trade standoff and are wearily whipsawing up and down, sometimes both directions at once.
But there’s one tariff that has yet to be revealed...
And unlike the others, this one is a lot more likely to stick: and that’s the 25% tariff Trump has threatened for copper.
He’s mentioned it several times now since February, but it has yet to appear with an official plan for enforcement.
We know the outline of his plan from an executive order on February 25th.
I’ll quote the opening verbatim:
“Copper is a critical material essential to the national security, economic strength, and industrial resilience of the United States. Copper, scrap copper, and copper’s derivative products play a vital role in defense applications, infrastructure, and emerging technologies, including clean energy, electric vehicles, and advanced electronics. The United States faces significant vulnerabilities in the copper supply chain, with increasing reliance on foreign sources for mined, smelted, and refined copper.”
In the order, Trump also invokes Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act, which makes it a national priority for defense.
This means that a tariff on copper will be a lot more than just a bargaining chip — and its effects are also likely to be much longer lasting.
In short: Trump is serious about moving copper mining back to America.
While I’m already tired of all the trade war tactics (and this seems like a lot of unnecessary drama) this remains one piece of good news.
America has needed a revitalization of its mining industry for decades.
And given the falling grades and product shortfalls we’ve been seeing — it’s not a moment too soon.
Copper is the essential resource that makes our modern world possible.
And Trump isn’t bluffing when he says that America’s advanced industries (defense, AI, chips, manufacturing) are vulnerable without robust domestic production.
And the shift is going to come about quickly... especially with tariffs accelerating it into high gear.
This isn’t how I would’ve done it, but here we are.
There’s more — America also has a technological advantage that has yet to be revealed.
You see, it’s now possible to use a new chemical formula that can pull copper straight out of the rock, including “waste” rock that was once considered too difficult and expensive to mine.
A junior miner in Arizona is leading the way on this technology, thanks to a partnership with mining giant Rio Tinto.
The threat of tariffs has made this partnership more valuable than ever, and it’s my belief that this is perhaps one of the most understated (but profitable) ways to play this tariff showdown.
This junior miner has shown me triple-digit gains already, but that’s mostly just from buying activity from industry insiders.
As more is revealed about Trump’s plans, and the true capabilities of American copper mining, I think it’s going to get more attention from Wall Street.
I’ve visited this junior miner several times now, and I’ve seen the power of this new technology for myself.
It can turn a pile of rocks into sheets of 99.99% pure copper in a matter of hours — and best of all, it’s 100% American.
Let me show you what I’ve discovered on my trips to this junior miner and why it’s going to continue to benefit from these trade wars.
If we’re going to have to suffer through all of these tariff headlines, we may as well use them to our advantage.
Make it your own,
John Carl
Editor, Daily Profit Cycle