by Mac Slavo, SHTF Plan:
The copper bull market has
become much bigger than copper.
This is rapidly becoming a do-or-die industrial challenge for the Western world.
America wants AI supremacy. It wants gigantic data centers, new electrical grids, semiconductor fabs, autonomous factories, robots, drones, missiles, nuclear plants and a manufacturing renaissance.
There is one problem: Almost everything America wants to build requires copper.
And Washington has finally recognized copper as a national-security issue.
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· President Trump imposed Section 232 tariffs on copper products after determining that excessive import dependence threatened U.S. national security.
In 2026, Washington strengthened the regime further: most covered copper products now face a 50% tariff, while products meeting high U.S.-copper-content thresholds receive preferential treatment.
The message is unmistakable: America must mine, refine and manufacture copper again.
Because the alternative is strategic dependence precisely when the AI arms race is exploding. And the supply mathematics are frightening.
· S&P Global estimates global copper demand could surge from approximately 28 million tonnes in 2025 to 42 million tonnes by 2040. Without major supply expansion, it projects a staggering 10-million-tonne shortfall—roughly 25% of projected demand.
Why? AI is joining electrification, EVs, renewable generation, defense and grid modernization as another enormous copper consumer.
Data centers could consume as much as 14% of U.S. electricity by 2030, while global data-center capacity could explode from roughly 100 GW in 2022 to 550 GW by 2040.
Nobody articulates the problem more dramatically than Robert Friedland, self-made billionaire and one of his generation’s most accomplished mine-builders. Friedland helped discover and develop world-class mineral systems, including the gigantic Kamoa-Kakula copper complex. When he discusses the difficulty of creating new copper supply, investors should listen because he has actually spent decades finding, financing and building mines.
His warning is astonishing: simply maintaining roughly 3% global growth could require humanity to mine as much copper during the next 18 years as it mined during the previous 10,000 years combined—and that’s before fully accounting for data centers and electrification.
