President Trump said in yesterday's cabinet meeting that he has decided to impose a 50% tariff on imports of copper, an announcement that pushed U.S. copper prices to an all-time high. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick later in the day said that the new tariffs will go into effect by Aug. 1 or sooner.
The Department of the Interior yesterday gave the green light to a new coal mine in Tennessee under its new, expedited environmental review procedures designed to speed up reviews of energy projects in response to the national energy emergency declared by President Trump earlier this year. This project will produce up to 1.8 million tons of coal over the next 10 years.
The Wall Street Journal has an interesting look at how countries in Africa are beginning to restrict mineral exports in an effort to build their own processing capacity at home, creating more jobs and revenue. Nearly half of Africa's 54 countries have restricted or banned raw-material exports over the past two years, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development—efforts that could be at odds with the Trump administration's international minerals dealmaking.
That's your Mining Minute for this morning, highlighting some of the mining-related matters that are on our minds here in Washington and beyond. Follow us on the National Mining Association's channels, as well as on Minerals Make Life and Count on Coal, for more on the latest news and policies impacting mining.
