President Donald Trump said Tuesday he’s imposing a new 50% tariff on all copper imported into the US. However, it’s unclear when the new tariff would take effect.
“Today we’re doing copper,” he said at a Cabinet meeting, adding that he believed the rate will be 50%.
This would mark the fourth across-the-board tariff Trump has imposed during his second term. Currently, most imported cars and car parts face a 25% tariff, while imported steel and aluminum both face 50% tariffs.
The White House didn’t immediately respond to CNN regarding Trump’s timeline for imposing copper tariffs.
Trump ordered a Section 232 investigation into copper imports in February, using a law that gives the president authority to impose higher tariffs based on national security grounds.
Copper is a crucial component in a variety of goods, including electronics, machinery and cars. Tariffs on copper could make those goods more expensive for Americans. The US imported $17 billion worth of copper last year, according to US Commerce Department data. Chile was the largest foreign supplier of the metal, shipping $6 billion worth of it to the US last year.
Copper prices surged to all-time highs after Trump said he plans to levy tariffs on the red metal. Copper futures in New York jumped as much as 15% and hit a record $5.68 per pound.
“I’ve been surprised it’s taken this long to get the copper tariff,” Ed Mills, Washington policy analyst at Raymond James, told CNN.
Copper prices have soared 38% this year as Trump’s tariffs are set to hike the cost of importing the metal, a reflection of stockpiling to get ahead of tariffs.
“A 50% increase will be a massive tax on consumers of copper,” Ole Hansen, head of commodity strategy at Saxo Bank, said in an email.
“Watch what Trump does, not what he says,” Hansen said. “Perhaps we may see a staggered approach once the administration realizes the impact on consumers of such a big move.”
Trump also said on Tuesday that 200% tariffs on pharmaceuticals are coming “very soon,” but they may not take effect for some time in an effort to get more companies to move to the US.
Trump, who exempted drug imports from tariffs during his first term, has been promising to impose tariffs on pharmaceutical products for several months but has yet to announce any concrete measures. The administration launched an investigation into pharmaceutical imports in mid-April, setting the stage to impose tariffs on national security grounds.
The president now argues that the United States needs more domestic drug manufacturing so it does not have to rely on other countries for its supply of medicines. Multiple drug makers have announced expansions of their US-based manufacturing initiatives, though some were in the works prior to Trump taking office in January.
In response to the pharmaceutical tariff threat, Australia’s Treasurer Jim Chalmers said on Wednesday that the country is “urgently seeking” more details on the “very concerning” development.
“Our pharmaceuticals industry is much more exposed to the US market,” Chalmers told Australia’s national broadcaster ABC, adding that it amounted to billions of dollars in exports.
Meanwhile, on Monday Trump extended his “reciprocal” tariff pause to August 1. Those rates, briefly imposed in April, had been set to resume at 12:01 am ET on Wednesday. Trump has also been sending a flurry of letters to country leaders informing them what their new tariff rates could be come August, absent a new negotiated rate.
This story has been updated with additional context and developments.
From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to cover? Let us know!
“The work stoppage involving District Council 33 and the City of Philadelphia is OVER,” Mayor Cherelle Parker announced on social media early Wednesday morning.
A marathon negotiation session Tuesday between the city and its blue collar workers’ union responsible for trash pick-up and other duties around the city has resulted in a tentative contract agreement.
DC33 President Greg Boulware was exhausted after the 12-hour negotiation session and said they did what they had to do.
“There’s a lot of factors involved in what was going on and we ultimately did what we thought was in the best interest of all of our membership,” Boulware said.
The deal appears to be a complete win for the city because it got just about everything Parker wanted with a 3% raise in each of the three years of the deal. It’s a deal the Parker administration is calling “historic.”
When adding in the 5% increase the city agreed to last year to extend DC33’s contract by one year, the increase for the union over Parker’s four-year term will total 14%. That’s still well below the 32% total pay increase the union was fighting for.
“Your union stood up and fought for you and we did the best we can with the circumstances we had in front of us,” Boulware said.
Those circumstances include workers expecting to miss a paycheck Thursday.
Union officials have told workers to return to the job pending a ratification vote.
Nine thousand members of American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees District Council 33 went on strike July 1. The strike has resulted in massive piles of trash piling up on city streets and around trash drop-off sites designated by the city.
The strike also resulted in changes to the city’s annual Fourth of July concert with headliner LL Cool J and city native Jazmine Sullivan both dropping out.
The loss of 27 campers and counsellors from Camp Mystic to the Texas Hill Country flood may serve, at a terrible cost, to expand its considerable reputation across Texas and beyond. Even as the floods claimed more lives along the valley – more than 100 confirmed dead and 160 people unaccounted for as of Tuesday – the loss of several “Mystic Girls” has dominated the headlines.
The camp, which offers two four-week terms and one two-week term over the summer, has been the go-to summer camp for daughters of Texans for nearly a century. It’s so popular that fathers have been known to call the registrar to get their daughters on the list from the delivery room.
The camp, which spans more than 700 acres, has been widely described as an all-girls Christian camp, lending an image of baptisms in the river, but the religious component may be overstated: the camp is known as one of dozens along the Guadalupe River that Texan families send their young to escape the brutal heat of the lowlands.
Now at least one-half of Camp Mystic, which was due to celebrate its centenary next year, lies in ruins, torn apart by raging floodwaters. The sound of song and girls playing has been replaced by the sound of chainsaws and heavy equipment as 19 state agencies and thousands of volunteers work to search and clear mounds of flood debris along the river, including the muddied personal items of the campers.
Five days after the flood, the task along the valley has become a search-and-recovery operation: no one has been rescued from the river alive since Friday. In addition to the lost girls, Camp Mystic’s director, Richard “Dick” Eastland, a fourth-generation owner of the camp, died while attempting to bring five girls to safety.
“It tugs at the heart of anyone in the world that see the pictures of those little faces,” said Claudia Sullivan, author of a book on the Camp Mystic experience, Heartfelt: A Memoir of Camp Mystic Inspirations. “To know that they were there, having the time of their life, that they were innocent, and then to be taken away in such a tragic event – it takes you to your knees.”
Most alumni contacted by the Guardian indicated they were too upset to discuss the camp, or its reputation, as Texas Monthly put it in a 2011 article, for serving “as a near-flawless training ground for archetypal Texas women”.
It has served generations of Texas women, often from well-to-do or politically connected Texas families, including the former first lady Laura Bush, who was a counsellor, and the daughters and granddaughters of Lyndon Johnson, former secretary of state James Baker, and Texas governors Price Daniel, Dan Moody and John Connally.
The camp may have been incorrectly characterized as a “Christian” camp. “That evokes the idea of church camp but that’s not the case,” said Sullivan. “It’s a private camp for girls that holds Christian values. When I was there we spent a lot of time talking about being kind to one another and having compassion, and there were people from other denominations and faiths.”
Camp Mystic is better understood, Sullivan added, as being in a place free from pressure.
“You’re in nature, in a beautiful setting, and really removed from the world”, said Sullivan. “It’s a place of joy and innocence – or was. My sense is that it will definitely be rebuilt, but it’s awfully early.”
The outpouring of grief and rush to support the community have been striking. A church memorial service was held on Monday in San Antonio for the “Mystic girls” who had been lost. Many dressed in the camp’s green and white, together in song and prayer.
A wall is missing on a building at Camp Mystic along the banks of the Guadalupe River. Photograph: Julio Cortez/AP
It was not possible to get to the camp on Tuesday, a tailback of 2.5 hours extended across the 7 miles from Hunt, the nearest hamlet, to Camp Mystic. At the season’s peak in July and August, the camp hosted 750 girls aged between seven and 17 years old – that’s more than half of Hunt’s population of around 1,300.
At Ingram, a riverbank town that also lost dozens from RV camps and homes to the flood, emergency workers and volunteers were pitching in, in many cases in the hope of recovering people still lost, and many bodies likely hidden under large piles of river debris, shattered homes and mangled possessions.
John Sheffield, owner of Ingram’s Ole Ingram Grocery, said the flood had not recognized social differences and nor would the recovery effort: “This is Americans taking care of Americans. There’s been such a tremendous outpouring of support and compassion.”
Down by the river, search crews were continuing to comb through debris and mud. Claud Johnson, the mayor of Ingram, was operating a digger up by Hunt. An EMS van pulled up, suggesting another body had been found. Helicopters continued to move overhead despite an incident on Monday when one was struck by a privately operated drone and was forced to make an emergency landing.
Three baristas from the Aftersome Coffee stand in San Antonio had come up to serve recovery workers. Allyson Bebleu said she had gone to church camp and it had given her some of her fondest memories.
“It’s not just for the wealthiest families, people of all types go to camp,” she said. “Everyone is putting themselves in the shoes of the Camp Mystic girls. It’s tragic.”
Camp Mystic was also the subject of a controversial video recently posed by Sade Perkins, a former member of Houston’s Food Insecurity Board. Perkins was “permanently removed” by John Whitmire, the Houston mayor, after she called Camp Mystic a “whites only” conservative Christian camp without even “a token Asian, they don’t have a token Black person”.
Richard Vela, whose 13-year-old daughter Maya was evacuated from a nearby camp, Camp Honey Creek, on Friday and was still too upset to discuss it, said Perkins’ comments “were not right. You don’t talk about people like that. There’s a lot of death going on and they still haven’t found everybody.”
Bruce Jerome, who was manning an outreach for flood survivors in Ingram, said he had known Jane Ragsdale, the director and longtime co-owner of Heart O’ the Hills Camp, in Hunt, Texas, who had died in the flooding.
“She was just genuinely wonderful,” Jerome said.
Campers’ belongings sit outside one of Camp Mystic’s cabins. Photograph: Eli Hartman/AP
Further down the track to the river was Josey Garcia, a Democratic representative for San Antonio in the Texas state house. She and her team were also picking through the debris, pointing out vast piles that still need to be be sifted through.
Garcia, a military veteran, said it was important to come “and collaborate with our neighbors here to recover those that are missing and help Kerr county clean up. We’ve had folks coming from Laredo and outstate Kansas to lend assistance. It’s showing the spirit of Texas – when it comes to lives being devastated its our duty to step.”
Garcia, too, rejected negative characterizations of Camp Mystic.
“I’ve been hearing a lot of the rhetoric that’s been going around. This is not the time for those types of distinctions. I don’t care who was at the camp. All I know is that there are parents and families that are missing their loved ones. Whether it’s rich Caucasian children or any other children, we’d still be there.”
Welcome to Brooklyn, NY where Samsung is unveiling new foldable phones at its latest Galaxy Unpacked event. According to a massive leak yesterday, we’ll likely see the Galaxy Z Fold 7, Z Flip 7 and Z Flip 7 FE. That’s in line with the expectations of Samsung’s usual summer foldable releases that have happened for the past few years.
Otherwise, buckle in to watch the livestream below and follow live commentary from our own Sam Rutherford on the scene.
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From first impressions this does seem like a huge leap forward in design for the Z Fold. It’s the first time it actually looks like a regular phone when closed.
“Is it too slim?”. No such thing, my friend. The Z Fold 7 has been optimized to fit the battery… which is the same size as last year’s model. I suppose it’s thinner, which is impressive.
As a three-time Samsung foldable owner, yes, that’s us Mat.
Samsung is saying this is the thinnest Z Fold ever while including new adhesive and titanium layers for its flexible display.
This is so weird. Samsung is talking about taking on its users’ opinions and thoughts. And what an attractive bunch of typical users! Is this the everyperson buying Samsung foldables?
A flashy video showed off the Z Fold 7’s new very thin profile, which looks a lot the Galaxy S25 Edge, ending on the Z Fold 7 taking the place of New York’s famous Flatiron building.
Samsung is talking a big game about this thing. The company is promising “breakthroughs without compromise.”
There were some wild screams as Won-Joon Choi, the recently appointed COO of the mobile experience division, took the stage. I don’t know why.
The Galaxy Z Fold 7 is here. (Sam Rutherford for Engadget)
Sorry ya’ll, getting a stable connection here is tough. But TM Roh is getting right into the action with the announcement of the Galaxy Z Fold 7.
“This is more than just a new Flip or Fold,” says mobile head TM Roh.
Samsung mobile president and “acting head of device experience division” TM Roh has stepped onstage, and is welcoming the audience and giving us a brief history of the company’s phones.
The Unpacked keynote has started, and after a quick flash of the usual legal disclaimers, Samsung is now showing us a video.
I feel like Fold and Flip owners have such different expectations. I mean a tri-fold sounds pretty rad but personally all I want is the option to pay a little more money for a Flip that has flagship cameras.
I agree with Sam. They also teased that next “Ultra” chapter. Will we see a Z Fold Ultra? It should be a trifold, in my opinion!
FWIW, this Unpacked event is at the Brooklyn Naval Yard, which is its own weird little corner of town that’s kind of hidden away and hard to get into.
That said, there is a Wegman’s right down the street, so maybe Samsung was expecting people to stop there first? (I kid.)
The rumor I’m most interested in is the possible appearance of Samsung’s tri-fold phone. Info about it has swirling around for a while, but it’s been somewhat unclear if Samsung actually has plans to release it in the US.
If we do see , I’m betting that it will be as a quick tease or a “one more thing” at the end of the presentation, similar to how they gave us a preview of the S25 Edge at the previous Unpacked event at the beginning of the year.
Do you all think maybe Samsung couldn’t find any good catering because everyone is so busy shopping Amazon’s Prime Day deals. Did you like how I casually referenced this massive shopping event in the middle of our liveblog? I just wanted to set the scene for those wondering what’s going on outside of the Samsung world today and this week. (The Engadget homepage is a good indicator of what else is happening in the consumer tech world.)
Important snack update
Screenshot (Slack)
Well hi there Sam! I too have a seat, but it’s at my desk, at 6:45AM, in sunny Arizona. Looking forward to throwing the Galaxy Z Flip 6 I’ve used daily for the past year or so into that sun shortly.
