Major adjustments to U.S. tariffs! Trump announces exemptions for global tariffs on gold, tungsten, and uranium

According to the Zhitong Finance APP, U.S. President Donald Trump took significant tariff adjustment actions on Friday local time, exempting graphite, tungsten, uranium, gold bars, and other metals from the country's tariff system imposed by nationality, meaning these products will be exempt from the U.S. government's global tariff policy. At the same time, silicone products will be included in the taxable range. These significant changes will take effect on Monday based on an executive order signed on Friday.

Trump's executive directive may also accelerate the implementation of customized trade cooperation agreements between the U.S. and other countries, making it easier for Washington to eliminate tariffs on critical aircraft components, generic drugs, and certain products that cannot be grown, mined, or naturally produced in the U.S.—such as specialty spices and coffee, as well as lesser-known obscure metals.

This initiative formalizes the plan to exempt gold bars, a product long favored by U.S. investors, from tariffs. A ruling by U.S. Customs and Border Protection weeks ago shocked global commodity traders and caused chaos in gold trading, as the ruling indicated that gold bars not produced in the U.S. would be subject to import taxes.

President Trump's order indicates that these urgent tariff changes were made based on recommendations from senior U.S. government officials. According to the initiative, "these adjustments are necessary and appropriate to respond to" the "national emergency" that Trump declared when he first implemented his global country-specific tariffs in April.

Additionally, 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-type trade agreements with other countries, such as the preliminary trade agreements Trump reached with the European Union, 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 specify framework agreements with other countries, so that future tariff changes within these agreements do not require Trump to issue a new executive order each time. In the future, any specific tariff changes (including exemptions/reductions/list adjustments) that need to be implemented within the framework agreements already negotiated with the EU, Japan, South Korea, etc., can be carried out by the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) and the Department of Commerce under this mechanism, without needing a new executive order from the president each time.

Trump's global tariffs are at the core of his broad efforts to address what he condemns as trade imbalances that pose a threat to national security. Before significantly raising dozens of country-specific tax rates last month, the president had reached agreements with multiple economies to lower tax rates in exchange for foreign governments removing barriers to U.S. goods.

These tariffs and some agreements were hastily formulated over months, leading Wall Street investment firms to complain that they could disrupt key markets and drive up prices for goods that cannot be grown or produced in the U.S.

The reciprocal tariffs from the Trump administration are being eliminated or exempted for a range of mineral products, with a focus on key materials used in aerospace, consumer electronics, medical devices, and other technology fields.

Pseudoephedrine, antibiotics, and other critical drugs— which are already subject to another ongoing trade investigation by the Department of Commerce—also received new exemption orders However, in addition to continuing to impose taxes on silicone products, U.S. President Trump has also extended the detailed categories of reciprocal tariffs to include resins and aluminum hydroxide.

Why did Trump exempt gold, tungsten, and uranium from his global tariff policy?

Overall, these exempted categories are either systemic financial and settlement assets (gold) or key materials that "choke the U.S." (tungsten, uranium) — imposing universal tariffs would instead raise costs for critical domestic industries or disrupt U.S. national security supply; exemptions align better with the comprehensive goals of financial stability, manufacturing and defense, as well as energy security.

Gold is crucial for the normal operation of the U.S. and even global financial markets, while tungsten and uranium are related to manufacturing/defense and energy security. Universal taxation could harm the TCO and resilience of critical domestic industries, while exemptions can provide targeted relief. The corresponding executive order clearly outlines a framework stating that "products that cannot be grown/mined/naturally produced domestically or are in short supply can receive zero tariffs," and authorizes the USTR and the Department of Commerce to execute flexibly according to the framework agreement.

For the core of U.S. hegemony — the military-industrial complex — tungsten is vital and heavily reliant on imports. Undoubtedly, its extreme physical properties support high-end weapons, making tungsten suitable for withstanding high temperatures, high pressures, and immense kinetic energy. In the fields of armor-piercing projectiles and ultra-high kinetic penetrators, tungsten alloys are the preferred material to replace depleted uranium, maintaining high penetration without causing radioactive contamination; in military applications such as aerospace and missile hot-end components, rocket nozzles, and electron beam heating elements, tungsten's high-temperature stability is essential. The broad industrial demand amplifies the "chokehold" effect, with hard alloy tools/drills accounting for about 60% of U.S. tungsten consumption, impacting high-end manufacturing chains in aviation, automotive, and energy sectors.

For Trump's major push to revive U.S. nuclear power after returning to the White House, as well as the massive nuclear power systems that tech giants like Meta, OpenAI, and Google are building for their new AI data centers, uranium is of utmost importance and also heavily reliant on imports. Trump has signed multiple presidential executive orders to promote reforms in the U.S. nuclear energy industry, including expanding the scale of U.S. nuclear energy, the nuclear energy supply chain, and shortening the approval process for nuclear power projects, sounding the horn for 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 fission chain reaction of uranium is precisely controlled to generate stable thermal energy for electricity generation. Nuclear energy, as an efficient and clean form of energy, is closely related to the physical properties of uranium and its fission reactions