U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday said he planned to announce a 50% tariff on copper imports later in the day, surprising a global industry whose output is critical to electric vehicles, military hardware,

President Trump wants America to produce more of the much-needed mineral, but a 50 percent tariff could undermine his aim of a manufacturing renaissance.

“The U.S. has been sucking in lots of copper that it didn’t really need from around the world,” Albert Mackenzie is a copper analyst at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence. President Trump had signaled that the tariffs were coming months ago, prompting many U.S. buyers to stockpile copper ahead of time.

DUBLIN, May 9, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --The 'The Future of Copper Market in United States (H1 2018) - Supply, Demand, Market Value, Infrastructure and ...

With his budget now law, President Donald Trump turned his attention to tariffs, including a threatened 50% levy on imported copper.