August 25, 2025
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
McLean, VA— The Copper Development Association (CDA) today issued the following statement from Adam Estelle, President and CEO, in response to copper’s inclusion on the U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS) draft 2025 Critical Minerals list.
On behalf of CDA, our members, the domestic copper industry, and all U.S. industries that depend on copper, we applaud USGS’s action to include copper on the draft 2025 Critical Minerals list. The data is clear: Critical Minerals status for copper is a national strategic imperative to counter rising imports and the concentration of production in China.
For decades, the flow of U.S. copper to market has been stymied by convoluted permitting, overreaching regulations, and a lack of strategic industrial policy to protect domestic producers from the trade-distorting practices of China and other non-market economies. The timing is crucial as the U.S. needs to rapidly implement an ‘all-of-the-above’ sourcing strategy to meet the projected doubling of copper demand by 2035. This must involve increased domestic mining, refining, recycling, and continued trade with reliable partners.
Critical Minerals status is the missing piece of a holistic set of policy solutions required to ensure a stronger, more reliable, and more resilient domestic copper industry. With the new Section 232 national security tariffs focused on protections for mid-stream and downstream copper product manufacturers, Critical Minerals status is essential to address remaining upstream issues in copper mining and refining through a different set of policy tools.
USGS Critical Minerals status will address persistent supply chain challenges and turbocharge domestic copper production through access to streamlined permitting, financial support, and other policy tools that are mission-critical to unlocking America’s massive geological copper endowment. Moreover, the buildout of new domestic mining and refining capacity will create many high-paying jobs in the process.
America runs on copper. Every data center, every grocery store, every school, every home, every vehicle, every manufacturing plant, every servicemember, and every American relies on copper and the value it brings to society. Today, USGS, Secretary Burgum, and President Trump sent a strong signal that copper is critical to the United States of America. CDA and its members strongly believe copper should remain on the final 2025 list and stand ready to unleash American copper like never before.
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