US confirms copper, silver as critical minerals

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

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

“The critical mineral list now encompasses three quarters of all mineable elements on the periodic table,” BMO Capital Markets commodity analysts George Heppel and Helen Amos said in a note on Friday.

“The broad definition of criticality could either be so that 1) a larger number of U.S. projects benefit from executive orders aimed at streamlining critical minerals production, or 2) to increase potential tariff revenue if the Section 232 investigation into critical minerals results in tariffs being applied.”

Section 232 allows the president to restrict imports that threaten national security, either by imposing tariffs, quotas, or other limits following a determination by the Secretary of Commerce. 

Trade disruption

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. It plans to update the list more often than the every three years it had been doing. 

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 list may inform areas of investments in mining and resource recovery from mine waste, stockpiles, tax incentives for U.S. mineral processing, as well as streamlined mine permitting.

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