Trump signals sharp copper tariffs as he expands trade war
One day after he pressured 14 trading partners, including powerhouse US suppliers like South Korea and Japan with fresh tariff letters, Trump reiterated his threat of 10% tariffs on products from Brazil, India and other members of the BRICS group of countries.
He also said trade talks have been going well with the European Union and China, though he added he is only days away from sending a tariff letter to the EU.
Trump's remarks, made during a White House cabinet meeting, could inject further instability into a global economy that has been shaken by the tariffs he has imposed or threatened on imports to the world's largest consumer market.
US copper futures jumped more than 10% after Trump's announcement of new duties on a metal that is critical to electric vehicles, military hardware, the power grid and many consumer goods. They would join duties already in place for steel, aluminum and automobile imports, though it was unclear when the new tariffs might take effect.
US pharmaceutical stocks also slid following Trump's threat of 200% tariffs on drug imports, which he said could be delayed by about a year.
Other countries, meanwhile, said they would try to soften the impact of Trump's threatened duties after he pushed back a Wednesday deadline to Aug 1.
Trump's administration promised '90 deals in 90 days' after he unveiled an array of country-specific duties in early April. So far only two agreements have been reached, with the UK and Vietnam. Trump has said a deal with India is close.
Trump said countries have been clamouring to negotiate.
'It's about time the United States of America started collecting money from countries that were ripping us off ... and laughing behind our back at how stupid we were,' he said.
He said late Tuesday that 'a minimum of seven' tariff notices would be released on Wednesday morning, and more in the afternoon. He gave no other details in his Truth Social post.
Trading partners across the globe say it has been difficult to negotiate even framework agreements with the US given the haphazard way new tariffs are announced, complicating their internal discussions about concessions.
Following Trump's announcement of higher tariffs for imports from the 14 countries, US research group Yale Budget Lab estimated consumers face an effective US tariff rate of 17.6%, up from 15.8% previously and the highest in nine decades.
Trump's administration has been touting those tariffs as a significant revenue source. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Washington has taken in about US$100 billion (RM424 billion) so far and could collect US$300 billion by the end of the year. The US has taken in about US$80 billion annually in tariff revenue in recent years.
The S&P 500 finished slightly lower on Tuesday, a day after Wall Street markets sold off sharply following Trump's new tariffs announcement. – Reuters
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It is time to look at the numbers and act accordingly. No serious economy can walk away from a US$3.35 trillion market. No government should risk being left behind while others negotiate preferential access to the world's richest consumers. Malaysia must stop imagining substitutes that do not exist and start negotiating harder for access to markets that matter. Trade is strategy. Either we are at the table shaping the rules, or we are on the menu, priced and picked apart by those who did. *The writer is an economist, adjunct lecturer at Universiti Teknologi Petronas, international relations analyst and a senior consultant with Global Asia Consulting. The views expressed in this op-ed are entirely his own.
