With President Donald Trump’s recent announcement of 50% tariffs on copper imports under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act, the United States has correctly identified copper as a material of strategic national importance.
For decades, U.S. politicians have sold free trade agreements as a beacon of prosperity for the American economy. The logic was tidy: “Most of the world’s consumers live outside the U.S.—so if we open foreign markets, prosperity will follow.” On paper, it sounded plausible. But in practice, it became one of the most costly economic miscalculations in our modern history.
Tariffs on Southeast Asia will go up at least two-fold by August 1 from the current rate of 10%, based on screen-shot letters President Trump shared on his Truth Social account on Monday.
If America fails to defend its copper industry today, it will lose the industrial backbone for tomorrow’s economy. The combination of speculative arbitrage, Chinese overproduction, and predatory pricing is decimating American copper mills.
A Market Access Charge (MAC) might be the perfect addition to the tariff agenda; a surgical tool to tax capital inflows.
The Senate’s decision to remove the FEOC Excise Tax and weaken FEOC restrictions is a blatant giveaway to the Chinese Communist Party’s solar industry.
Any Senator who supports an amendment to remove or weaken the FEOC Excise Tax is directly endorsing China’s solar industry—dominated by companies using slave labor, powered by coal, and compromised by severe cybersecurity risks.
Last year, it wasn’t even in the Top 10. This year, they’re number one. General Motors was ranked as the most China-exposed U.S. multinational by Strategy Risks, a political risk consultancy in New York.
CPA strongly endorses the FEOC Excise Tax in the Senate reconciliation bill as a critical step in protecting America’s solar manufacturing industry from reliance on subsidized and compromised Chinese components.
The U.S. kitchen cabinet industry has a long and storied history, deeply rooted in small- to medium-sized businesses that form the backbone of American manufacturing.
