Copper prices skyrocket as Trump mints new tariffs on the metal—and Canada

(Originally published July 11 in “What in the World“) Trump threatened Thursday to slap 35% tariffs starting Aug. 1 on imports from Canada.

Trump already imposed a 25% tariff on Canadian products back in February. After a one-month delay, those tariffs went into effect March 4. Two days later, Trump exempted Canadian imports complying with the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA), affecting roughly 38% of Canadian imports. But, also in March, he imposed an additional 25% tariff on imported aluminum and steel, which he raised to 50% last month. Canada supplies more than 20% of America’s steel and more than half of its aluminum.

Trump has also confirmed he will impose 50% tariffs on copper imports as of Aug. 1. The U.S. imports almost half its copper, most from Chile. Replacing that with domestic copper would take years. With businesses fretting and economists warning of ill effects, U.S. copper prices have already spiked so high thieves are targeting trucks shipping hauling the stuff.

The latest threat to Canada appears to be just the latest salvo in Trump’s epistolary trade offensive, in which he dispatched a series of letter Monday to U.S. trade partners granting an extension to his original July 9 deadline to reach trade deals with the U.S. or face his wildly miscalculated “reciprocal” tariffs, but threatening them with new tariff levels if they fail to reach a new deal by Aug. 1.

Trump also said in an interview that any country that he hasn’t sent a letter should expect to blanket tariffs of between 15% and 20%. “We’re just going to say all of the remaining countries are going to pay, whether it’s 20% or 15%,” he told NBC with the kind of imprecision you’d expect for someone negotiating the future of his citizens’ economic well-being. “We’ll work that out now.”

And that well-being is, to put it mildly, unwell. While unemployment data has been surprisingly strong, economists say it may be hiding a decline in the overall labor force—a symptom in part of Trump’s crackdown on immigration. Limiting the supply of incoming labor has put a lid on unemployment. But continuing claims for jobless benefits continue to climb.

Speaking of unwell, measles cases in the United States have this year exceeded cases in any year since 1992. The U.S. had eliminated the virus back in 2000. While most of the infections came from an outbreak in the Southwest, cases have erupted in 38 states—9 out of 10 in unvaccinated people. While a vaccination rate of 95% is required to achieve herd immunity, vaccination rates at the center of the outbreak were just 82%. That left them susceptible to a global resurgence in measles, which this year has resulted in record outbreaks in Canada and Mexico, and the highest number of infections in Europe in over 25 years.