US officially adds copper, silver to critical minerals list

[Ben Graham]

The United States has added copper and silver to an expanded list of critical minerals that it deems to be vital to America’s economy and national security.

The new list, compiled by the US Geological Survey, includes 10 additions to the previous one in 2022, taking the total to 60. The other notable additions are: uranium, metallurgical coal, potash, rhenium, silicon and lead. The addition of copper and silver confirms the earlier draft list provided by USGS.

The USGS said it devised the list by using an economic model that it developed to estimate the potential effects of foreign trade disruptions of mineral commodities.

The assessment spans 84 mineral commodities, 402 industries and more than 1,200 scenarios, which the USGS says offers a more realistic and usable framework for policymakers.

The critical minerals list serves as a basis for which commodities the Trump administration will invoke a Section 232 probe for potential tariffs and trade restrictions, as it had done with copper earlier this year.

The list would also inform areas of investments in mining and resource recovery from mine waste, stockpiles, tax incentives for US mineral processing, as well as streamlined mine permitting.

The update comes just days after the US and China agreed to resolve their issue over rare earth minerals, which make up 15 entries (or a quarter of total) on the USGS list.