The August 2025 inflation report has reignited debate over tariffs. Some pundits have been quick to blame trade policy for rising prices, invoking Smoot-Hawley comparisons and warning of disaster on the scale of the Great Depression. But the data tells a different story.
Data centers powering AI need copper wiring and transformers. EVs use nearly four times more copper than gas-powered cars. Wind turbines, solar farms and the modern electric grid all depend on it. As such, copper is a building block of tomorrow’s economy and the backbone of America’s national security.
America is dangerously reliant on high-risk foreign suppliers for essential generic drugs, especially APIs concentrated in China and India. That over-reliance has already triggered preventable crises, such as nationwide chemotherapy shortages when a single overseas plant shut down.
The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), enacted in 2000, was designed to promote economic development and democratic reform in Sub-Saharan Africa by granting duty-free access to the U.S. market for thousands of products.
America’s generic drug supply is at a crisis point. As detailed in previous reports, the United States is dangerously reliant on a high-risk imported drug supply, and today’s widespread drug shortages stem not from shipping delays or unexpected demand—but from a collapse in domestic production.
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.
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.
Depending on where you get your information, you would be forgiven for believing that we are getting buried by inflation, the stock market is in shambles, and that we need to start hoarding Chinese yuan to pay for our morning lattes.
The CPA Domestic Market Share Index (DMSI) dropped abruptly in the first quarter of 2025 as the massive pre-tariff import surge driven by stockpiling heavily outweighed current U.S. manufacturing output.
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.
