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Billionaire mining entrepreneur Robert Friedland welcomed US President Donald Trump’s vow to impose a 50 per cent tariff on copper imports, arguing that domestic production of the metal was “fundamental to America’s national security”.
Analysts and other executives have questioned the logic of imposing such a high levy when the US remained so dependent on imports of the metal, but the founder of Toronto-listed Ivanhoe Mines said the move was needed to “wake people up” to America’s vulnerability.
“There’s a new list of critical raw materials and without it, you can’t do anything about global warming or greening the world economy and you have a critical vulnerability in national security,” industry veteran Friedland told the Financial Times.
“I commend the Trump administration for doing what’s obvious and intelligent — America needs to produce the metal,” he said.
Copper has flowed into the US this year on expectations that Trump would eventually target imports. Consequently, US prices for the metal were down slightly on Wednesday after the announcement at $5.53 a pound, but that was still a 28 per cent premium to the global benchmark price in London.
Friedland, 74, dismissed any market reaction as “irrelevant”. “What’s really going on here is that the US wants the metal to be produced in the US, refined [in the US] — and not just copper. Copper is paradigm for probably 30 critical metals.”
As arguably the best known North American mining executive and one who also maintains strong ties with China and Saudi Arabia, Friedland has consulted with different US administrations on mining issues. In May he was among executives who met Trump and Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Mohammed bin Salman during the US president’s visit to Riyadh.
Friedland declined to comment on any discussions with US officials but praised Trump’s stance towards the mining sector.
“This administration is a massive breath of fresh air” for the industry, he said. “The miners have been beaten with the ugly stick for 50 years, as if mining were an elemental sin, and yet everybody wants an electric car or a microwave oven or a washing machine.”
Trump’s interior secretary Doug Burgum told mining companies in March that he wanted them to “mine, baby, mine” as part of an effort to break US dependence on imports of metals from China.
The administration has since moved to speed up permitting processes for certain projects including Rio Tinto’s long-delayed Resolution copper mine in Arizona.
Friedland’s US-focused Ivanhoe Electric also plans to develop a copper mine in Arizona called Santa Cruz.
Increased domestic production will reduce US dependence on imports and also ensure the US military has secure access to the copper needed for ammunition and hardware during what many analysts expect to be a period of increased military spending worldwide, Friedland said.
“We’re going from a just-in-time integrated world economy . . . to a just-in-case world economy and the administration raising tariffs on critical raw materials is a just-in-case move,” he added. “Just in case we have a war, we have to have enough raw material to deal with it.”
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