Major adjustment to US tariffs! Trump announces exemption of global tariffs on gold, tungsten, and uranium.

U.S. President Donald Trump took significant tariff adjustment actions on Friday local time, exempting graphite, tungsten, uranium, gold bars, and other metals from its country-based tariff system, agreeing to exempt these products from the U.S. government's global tariff policy, while including silicone products in the tariff range. These significant changes will take effect on Monday, based on an executive order signed on Friday. Trump's executive order may also expedite the implementation of custom trade agreements between the United States and other countries, making it easier for Washington to cancel tariffs on crucial aircraft components, generic drugs, and products that cannot be grown, mined, or naturally produced domestically such as specialty spices and coffee, as well as obscure metals. This move formalizes the plan to exempt gold bars, a product long favored by American investors, from tariffs. A ruling by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection weeks ago shocked global commodity traders and caused chaos in gold trading, as the ruling indicated that non-U.S. produced gold bars would be subject to import duties. President Trump's order shows that these emergency tariff changes were made at the recommendation of senior U.S. government officials. According to the measure, "These adjustments are necessary and appropriate to address" the "national emergency" declared by Trump when he first implemented his country-based tariffs in April. Furthermore, under this latest procedural shift, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) and the Department of Commerce will be authorized to take action to implement framework trade agreements with other countries, such as the preliminary trade agreements reached by Trump with the EU, Japan, and South Korea. This will eliminate the need for Trump to implement these changes through his own executive orders. Therefore, under this "procedural shift," the USTR and the Department of Commerce are empowered to finalize specific tariff changes within the framework agreements with the EU, Japan, South Korea, etc. This means that future tariff changes (including exemptions, reductions, and list adjustments) agreed upon in the framework trade agreements can be implemented by the USTR and Department of Commerce through this mechanism without the need for a new executive order from the president each time. Trump's global tariffs are at the core of his wide-ranging efforts to address trade imbalances that he condemns as threats to national security. Before raising tariffs on dozens of national rates last month, the president had reached agreements with multiple economies to lower tariffs in exchange for foreign governments eliminating barriers to American goods. These tariffs and some agreements were formulated in a hurried process over the course of several months, leading Wall Street investment firms to complain that they could disrupt key markets and raise prices on goods that cannot be grown or produced domestically. The Trump administration is canceling or exempting a range of mineral products from its retaliatory tariffs, including key materials for aviation, consumer electronics, medical devices, and other technology sectors. Pseudoephedrine, antibiotics, and other essential drugs which are also subject to another ongoing trade investigation by the Department of Commerce have received new exemption orders as well. However, in addition to continuing to impose tariffs on silicone products, President Trump is extending the specifics of his retaliatory tariffs to resins and aluminum hydroxide. Why did Trump exempt gold, tungsten, and uranium from his global tariff policy? Overall, the exempted categories are either systemic financial and settlement assets (gold) or key materials that "choke" the U.S. (tungsten, uranium) imposing universal tariffs would actually raise costs for key domestic industries or disrupt national security supplies; exemptions are more in line with the comprehensive goals of financial stability, manufacturing and defense, and energy security. Gold is crucial for the normal operation of the U.S. and global financial markets, while tungsten and uranium are crucial for manufacturing/defense and energy security. Universal taxation could harm the TCO and resilience of key domestic industries, while exemptions can pinpoint and mitigate shocks. The corresponding executive order clearly states that "products that cannot be grown/mined/naturally produced domestically or are in short supply can be granted zero tariffs," and authorizes the USTR and the Department of Commerce to flexibly implement this framework based on framework agreements. For the core of U.S. hegemony the military-industrial complex tungsten is crucial and highly dependent on imports. Firstly, it is undoubtedly the extreme physical performance supporting high-end weapons, making tungsten suitable for withstanding high temperatures, pressures, and huge kinetic energy. In the field of armor-piercing cores and ultra-high kinetic energy penetrators, tungsten alloys are the preferred alternative to depleted uranium, able to maintain high penetration without causing radioactive contamination; in the military industry areas such as aerospace and missile thermal components, rocket nozzles, and electron beam heating elements, tungsten's high-temperature stability is relied upon. The broad industrial demand amplifies the "neck-choking" effect, with hard alloy cutting tools/drill bits accounting for about 60% of U.S. tungsten consumption, crucial for aerospace, automotive, energy, and other high-end manufacturing chains. For Trump, who has vigorously pushed for the revival of the U.S. nuclear power industry since returning to the White House, and with Meta, OpenAI, and tech giants such as Google aggressively building new AI data centers powered by massive nuclear power systems, uranium is critical and also highly dependent on imports. Trump has signed multiple presidential executive orders to promote reform in the U.S. nuclear energy industry, including expanding the scale of U.S. nuclear energy, the nuclear industry chain, and shortening the approval process for nuclear power projects, heralding the revival of U.S. nuclear power. Uranium is one of the most important fuels in nuclear energy production, especially uranium-235, which releases immense energy through nuclear fission. In nuclear reactors, the chain reaction of uranium fission is precisely controlled to produce stable heat energy for power generation. Nuclear energy, as an efficient and clean form of energy, is closely related to the physical characteristics and fission reactions of uranium.