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Hello, and welcome to World Business Report from the BBC World Service.
I'm Sam Fenwick. Coming up on the program today, it's called the metal of electrification.
Electric cars contain four times more of it than petrol ones.
So why has the US president slapped a whacking great tariff on copper?
As President Trump ramps up tariffs, businesses are left guessing.
We hear from a California bike company feeling the squeeze.
We're a medium -sized bike brand.
We don't have enough volume that we could build a, you know, scalable assembly facility.
And can recently bankrupt Weight Watchers tip the scales back in its favour?
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So today it's copper's turn to be in the spotlight of the US President Donald Trump's tariffs.
Speaking at a cabinet meeting earlier today, he said today we're doing copper and then slapped a 50 % levy on all imports of the metal. What happened as a consequence is, well, as you might expect, prices reached record highs.
Let's talk to Ronan Murphy.
He's head of base metals at the pricing reporting agency Argus Media.
It tracks global commodity prices.
He's an expert on copper.
Ronan, copper is often called the metal of electrification.
Just explain why it's so important.
Yes, copper is, well, it's used in every kind of major industry.
It's used in infrastructure.
It's used in wiring across all of these industries.
It's an essential metal for anything to do with the energy transition, electric vehicles.
So it's essentially a critical mineral that isn't often referred to as a critical mineral.
Now, the tariff on copper is higher than what markets expected.
What did markets expect?
Why is it higher and what's it done to prices?
Three questions all in one there.
Well, I think the markets hoped, well, they say expected, I think they hoped that it would be 25 % because that was the original kind of similar tariff that was originally put on steel and aluminium.
However, steel and aluminium were lifted to 50 % just last month in June.
So I'm not surprised at all that they've gone for 50 % first up.
And as for what it's done to prices, the prices on the COMEX exchange, cop prices on the COMEX exchange in the US have gone up by over 12 % just in the last few hours to around $5 .50 per pound.
so it's had a very uh extreme uh impact already now over the past sort of 12 months at least since the beginning of this year uh economies businesses have been stockpiling copper haven't they they've been sort of preparing for this and stocks have dropped to their lowest level since 2023 so prices have been kind of rising haven't they since the turn of the year yes well global Global stocks in the London Metal Exchange and Shanghai Exchange networks have fallen.
But stocks in the US, which is COMEX, have actually risen significantly.
And as you say, the US buyers have really been stockpiling.
We saw over 400 ,000 tonnes of refined copper imported into the US in April and May combined alone, which is around, you know, that's approaching half of the typical imports they do for a single year.
So they do have a big stockpile.
they can work with in the near term.
Now, the US does mine some copper, doesn't it?
But it also does rely very heavily on imports from Chile, Canada and Mexico.
So what is that going to do to the copper industry in the United States?
Well, the US relies on imports for around about between 45 -50 % of its consumption.
It does have a lot of projects that are in the pipeline.
They're all at very early stages.
They need funding. They need funding, I think, most likely from the government and also from the private sector.
And the companies operating those projects will hope that this tariff news gives more impetus to getting those projects off the ground and through permitting.
But it does need to be kind of stated that most of those projects, in the best case scenario, you're not going to start producing copper until late 2020s, early 2030s, at the earliest. Ronan Murphy, copper pricing expert there from Argus Media, thank you very much for joining us today on the programme.
President Trump did not stop at copper.
Here he is at Tuesday's cabinet meeting.
seek. We'll be announcing something very soon on pharmaceuticals.
We're going to give people about a year, year and a half to come in.
And after that, they're going to be tariffed if they have to bring the pharmaceuticals into the country, the drugs and other things into the country.
They're going to be tariffed at a very, very high rate, like 200 percent.
We'll give them a certain period of time to get their act together.
But they were all here.
Now they all left. They went to other places because we allowed people that sat in this room, allowed it to happen.
and I don't allow it to happen.
The people in this room don't allow it to happen.
So we're going to be announcing pharmaceuticals, chips and various couple of other things, you know, big ones.
We did seal, as you know, they're 50%.
We did aluminum, 50%.
Lumber just came out.
Inu Manek joins us now.
She is a fellow for trade policy at the Council for Foreign Relations, joining us today from Washington.
Washington and Donald Trump's been talking about pharmaceuticals since he began rolling out this tariff agenda but today I think is the first indication of when they might actually come in and it's a 12 -month lead in time yes it looks like that President Trump has not only announced when these are likely to come in but also gave a number of what they might be so he said you know it's going to be a 200 % tariff, and we're going to phase this in slowly over the next year.
Now, Secretary Lutnik, who's our Commerce Secretary, said that a report would be issued by the end of this month on both pharmaceuticals and semiconductors, which is part of an investigation he has to conduct as part of the law in which he's invoking these tariffs.
So, we yet to see the reports on that, but we likely will see them by the end of this month, at which point we'll see more details on these tariffs.
And what is that review?
So that they can actually bring tariffs in on drugs and chips.
Just explain that a bit more.
Yeah, exactly. So this is a law called Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962.
It permits the president to take action to restrict imports for national security reasons that he deems are a security threat to the United States.
And that law creates a process for for investigating whether or not there is some sort of national security threat from the imports that are being brought in.
And it is the Commerce Secretary who is responsible for conducting that investigation, doing a fact -finding mission and offering a recommendation to the president of what kind of action to take.
Typically, that report takes 270 days, but here we are at 120 days since the copper investigation began, and we already have a potential tariff.
Why would they have to do a report for national security on chips and pharmaceuticals, but not all the other things that we've had tariffs on?
Well, the President used a different law to enact the broad sweeping tariff that he announced on April 2nd, and that law is called the International Economic Emergency Powers Act.
That's a very different national security law that allows for potentially broad reaching action, but that's being challenged in the court right now, and it's potentially going to be overturned.
So the president is turning to section 232.
This national security law gives a lot more discretion to the president to take actions on trade issues.
And that's why he's coming back to this, I think, largely out of fear that those other tariffs are going to be rescinded by the court.
Interesting. This time yesterday, we were talking about these letters that had arrived on Truth Social, 14 potential new tariffs, but also a deadline extension, more deals possibly being done or more letters coming out?
Where are we close to deals with perhaps the EU and India?
It's certainly possible.
We heard a couple of days ago that we were only days away from a deal with India.
The EU has been ratcheting up its presence here and trying to conclude a deal.
So so that might happen.
But again, these aren't really trade deals as we traditionally think of them.
It's sort of like a framework for future discussions, similar to what was agreed with the United Kingdom.
I mean, it sits at five pages, right?
So that's not a very detailed trade agreement.
But what it does is that it addresses some of the immediate trade irritants, and then sets up a way to discuss future issues that the two parties can talk about.
Inu Manak from the Council for Foreign Relations, thank you very much. Well, one American company caught in the middle of Trump's tariff trade war is Marin Bikes, based in California.
They design mountain bikes at home in the US, but they build them in Indonesia and Vietnam before shipping them back to the US market.
So with parts and frames coming in from Asia, CEO Matt Van Enkvoort told me that they have no idea, month to month, what their bikes could end up costing.
So at any point in time, we've got four or five, six containers of bicycles, it's about 240 bikes per container that are in transit, either through our factory in Vietnam or Indonesia.
And you know, the biggest problem now is lack of clarity.
As this tariff situation evolves, we really have no idea what amount amount of cash we're going to have to come up with to pay off the tariff bill as well as the freight forwarders and get the goods into our warehouse and then make a calculation as to how that affects our market pricing.
Did you know or were you able to factor in the tariffs before those bikes were manufactured?
So initially, we absorbed some of the costs and then eventually as As our cost of goods crept up and our margins decreased, we had to pass it along.
And at that point, I think it was about a six and a half to seven percent increase.
And, you know, as the goods now look to be burdened a little further, we'll have to reassess what our market price is and our dealer price and most likely see further increases.
It's hard to say exactly how much, but it's going to hurt.
And at least what I can say is this hits everybody.
There really isn't any competitor in this country that is assembling domestically of any significance that would have an advantage in the marketplace.
Well, that brought me on to my next question, because one of the arguments President Trump uses is that stuff like bikes could be assembled in the United States.
Why can't they? Well, so there's two answers to that.
That one is that there is some domestic bike assembly.
The only one I know of any note of any volume is actually shutting down because the tariffs also apply to the components.
And as they're importing frames and or components for assembly, it's pushed their costing to the point where they don't believe they can be successful.
The components are really the other point.
So there is a supply chain for bicycle components that are at consumer price points.
You can find components like hubs and, you know, bearing sets and handlebars and things domestically, but they're generally only a very premium level of product.
So, for affordable components, China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Philippines for tires, things like that, it's a very well -established supply chain.
To avoid the import duties and build the bike domestically, you'd have to replicate that supply chain in the United States, or there would have to be exemptions for assemblers that want to import the components to assemble the bikes domestically, which doesn't exist at this time.
You know, the amount of investment capital that we'd need to set up an assembly facility for ourselves, it would be difficult to justify.
We're a medium -sized bike brand.
We don't have enough volume that we could build a, you know, scalable assembly facility.
And then secondly, to go back and try to find partners that would be willing to open the tooling to make all various components in this country.
It would take years, years, if they were even willing to undertake it.
That was Matt van Enkvoort from Marine Bikes.
Let's talk to George Conboy now.
He's the chairman of Brighton Securities.
He's based in upstate New York.
He's been checking what the markets and investors have been feeling today after those letters that came out yesterday, today after these large tariffs slapped on copper.
They're down. Wall Street ended down, but only slightly, George.
Right. We ended up really almost even on the day.
The Dow was down a bit.
The S &P 500 and Nasdaq essentially flat, although that doesn't count this morning where we were up smartly and did come down later in the day.
But compared to the magnitude of volatility we had earlier this year when tariffs took up every minute of airtime, the amplitude of the volatility is a lot less now than it was.
Yeah. So what does that tell us about how investors are feeling about these tariffs?
Oh, Sam, it's tariff fatigue.
Because investors early on tried to determine, well, what if we invest here?
What if we sell there or buy this?
But realized pretty quickly that we're going to put a tariff here, we're going to take a tariff off there.
We're going to raise this.
We're going to lower that.
You can't track it and you can't make meaningful long -term investment or capital placement decisions based on the whims of this whole tariff negotiation.
So the fatigue has kind of let everything slow down a little bit and take a breath trying to find out where it's going to shake out.
And Wall Street banks now are now feeling a bit more bullish over U .S. stocks, aren't they?
I think Goldman Sachs echoing what what JPMorgan Chase Barclays are saying, and they're sort of lifting their year -end target for the S &P 500.
Right, right. Well, let's face it.
The underlying economy itself is OK, and we've adjusted to the higher interest rates versus a few years ago.
Investors are looking at jobs.
They're looking at corporate earnings.
They're looking at dividends and valuations saying, eh, not bad.
And we've got some big drivers like AI that make investors more more bullish.
And the last of all, you know, as I so often do, we paraphrase Winston Churchill when he talked about democracy, right?
Worst form of government that's ever been tried.
When we look at the U .S. economy, it so often comes off as the worst economy in the world, except for all of the others.
George Conboy, thank you very much from Brighton Securities.
This is World Business Report from the BBC World Service with me, Sam Fennec.
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George talking about stocks and shares there.
Well, shares in major US renewable companies took a hit on Tuesday after President Trump signed an executive order tightening access to clean energy tax breaks.
The move adds fresh uncertainty to green energy providers and comes just days after the president's big, beautiful bill already scaled back incentives for the industry.
Street. Now, you might think that Texas is an oil state, but do you know it's also the biggest U .S. state for renewable energy?
Andy Euler is there for us.
He's the energy journalism fellow at the University of Texas in Austin.
Andy, thanks for being with us today.
Explain what the executive order means for renewables.
Yeah, it's funny. The Trump administration and even some of the folks here in the state legislature in Texas, it seems like they're trying to make it as difficult as possible for wind and solar farms to be built.
Basically, plain and simple, under these new executive actions, developers are going to face tighter restrictions on when a project is considered to have started, which then makes it harder to qualify for tax credits that were already passed.
Now, I spoke with a source of mine who used to be an energy reporter himself.
He now works for a Texas solar company.
He told me that it won't change the basic market dynamic, that that solar and storage is deployable and scalable.
Gas and coal isn't, not any time soon anyway.
And he also gave me a nice analogy.
He said all they're doing is strapping on some running weights and attaching an anchor.
The renewable energy industry and the U .S. energy sector as a whole is going to be able to run a 10K, he said, but it's going to be slower and a lot more painful.
Which is interesting for a state like Texas, which needs energy.
It's got a growing energy demand.
It's got hot summers.
There's air con going on.
And these these big data centers being built all over.
And as you say, wind turbines and solar are easier to erect than a gas powered station.
That's exactly right.
You're not wrong. Texas is going to need more power.
We're seeing a growth in population.
You're exactly right.
Summers are getting hotter, more air con.
You know, winters are getting more questionable.
You know, then you're turning on your heater.
A lot of people that I speak with say that we're not in a position to pick winners and losers, especially in the electricity generation market, whether it's wind, solar, nuclear, natural gas, geothermal even.
I keep hearing that Texas needs to be courting all of them.
But as you said in the beginning here, oil and gas is still king here in Texas.
They contribute a lot of money to a lot of different legislators at the state and federal level.
All this executive order seems to me to be is that powerful lobby flexing while they still can.
But what about red states like Texas?
Could they start to push back against President Trump, perhaps when energy prices start to go up because of his policy towards renewables?
Yeah, no, no, no. You're exactly right.
It seems like this is if there was ever a state that was in a prime position to do exactly that, Texas would be it.
it. And whether the flexing from the oil and gas lobby comes at the expense of taxpayers and utility customers here in Texas, from what I'm reading and from what I'm hearing, the measures are going to make Texans' electricity bills more expensive.
And when that happens, then you're exactly right.
You see legislators, they're going to have some hell to pay in the next election cycle, which for us is November of next year.
You're right. That's sort of the time when we'll see if voters sort of speak in the ballot box saying we just want all the energy we can get.
We don't really care if it's wind and solar.
We don't care about your sight lines, President Trump.
Just give us more electricity because we don't want our bills to be escalated.
That's the big push right now is if we if if we see a spike in electricity bills, it's going to be tough to pass this to voters.
And, you know, this comes after the big, beautiful bill last week also trimmed incentives for renewable companies.
Yeah, that's exactly right.
So this executive action was actually pretty widely anticipated because some of the fiscal hawks were holding up passage of that bill, saying that they would ultimately vote for it as long as he took, he, President Trump, took executive action to hamstring wind and solar.
Now, the big, beautiful Bill Act, it effectively ends renewable energy tax credits after 2026.
It's going to be tough to get anything in the ground, it's got to be completed by 27.
It's going to be really, really tough.
So this is just sort of adding on.
Andy Hewler, thank you very much for joining us.
Well, for decades, millions of people around the world turned to Weight Watchers to help manage their weight.
But in recent years, the company has struggled.
And on Tuesday, it laid out its plan for a fight back.
More on that in a moment.
But first, James Wickham takes a look at how it all began.
For decades, it's been a go -to for those who want to lose the pounds.
Your favourite foods, and most diets, you can't have them.
Promising a revolutionary new way to lose weight.
And we can teach you how to eat anything and still control your weight, even desserts.
Weight Watchers was the brainchild of Jean Nydidge, a housewife in New York who'd been overweight until a ten -week programme developed by the city's board of health.
she liked the results but not the way the message was delivered so she along with a businessman al lippert and his wife felice set up weight watchers join a weight watchers meeting near you today losing weight never tasted so good the first official meeting in may 1963 attracted 400 people four years later the company was international with 102 franchises in the united United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, Great Britain and Israel.
So I got through the party without eating one bite of cake.
At a Weight Watchers meeting, you'll hear cheers.
By 1978, it was too big for them to manage and was sold to Heinz for $72 million.
You'll learn it's easier to lose weight when you're not trying to do it alone.
It attracted big names as spokespeople.
Famously in the US, Oprah Winfrey even became a shareholder.
Before her, even royalty was on board. Have you been to Makewatching lately?
That's Sarah, Duchess of York.
She was brought in as a face of the brand after strong competition in the 90s from brands including Jenny Craig, Slimfast, Healthy Choice and Nutrisystem saw earnings fall.
Heinz sold the company in 1999 to a private equity firm for $735 million.
It went public in 2001, and by 2018 it rebranded to WW, with the tagline Wellness That Works.
In that year, it was said to be the most widely used commercial diet in the world.
But there are a couple of big issues on the horizon.
Their in -person group model took a big hit in the pandemic.
And then the new weight loss drugs, Ozempic, Wegovy and others have had a rapid rise.
And despite a tightening of belts, that led to Weight Watchers declaring for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in May with debts of more than $1 .6 billion.
dollars. James Wickham reporting, Weight Watchers has said that it now plans to relist on the Nasdaq following its restructuring and focus on supporting women through all stages of the menopause.
Well, I asked Amina Nyes, Reuters company's reporter in New York, where it all went wrong for Weight Watchers.
In its bankruptcy filing, Weight Watchers did say that it struggled struggle to compete with companies that are selling these blockbuster drugs.
That includes pharma companies that sell Agobi and Zepound, but it's also struggled to compete with rivals offering cheaper copies through telehealth.
So in a way, it couldn't keep up with them because what those drugs act so quickly and Weight Watchers, what you have to watch your weight for a certain amount of time before you'll start to lose weight, I suppose.
So Weight Watchers offering is based off of meetings and a point system that just wasn't appealing to consumers who are used to these highly effective drugs where you're oftentimes losing over 15 % of your body fat within months.
It would be that accountability, wouldn't it?
Meeting up with friends and the person that's lost the most weight sort of gets a cheer.
But I suppose if you haven't been able to lose weight that week, it could be quite soul destroying, couldn't it?
Yeah, I'm sure. So they're going to relaunch themselves and they are going to start a partnership with one of these weight loss drugs, aren't they?
Yes. So Novo, which is the drug maker that creates Wegovy, announced a deal with Weight Watchers last month.
And the potential of a rebrand is a question on many people's minds.
In the US market, most patients don't pay a full price for these weight loss drugs.
They leverage their health insurance, right?
And in talks with Weight Watchers CEO, she was very hopeful about this partnership with Novo drawing health insurers to pay for Weight Watchers as a benefit for patients.
Her messaging was very clear.
This is a company that's been around for decades and they plan to continue to do this work and reemerge as a credible player here.
So how will they work together?
how will Weight Watchers change so that you know members of this sort of community will be taking the drugs as well it kind of makes you feel that Weight Watchers might not be needed if people are taking the drugs what will there still be support for each other is that that is that the point?
So the company's CEO said that this partnership is a response to consumers saying hey we want greater access to the medications so it looks like Weight Watchers wants to tailor programming to support people on these drugs and not fight against it.
You know, this partnership allows Weight Watchers to sell a Govee directly to subscribers and its CEO thinks this could really boost access for its patients and drive even greater results.
And I think there's a greater sort of focus on women's health as well as part of this rebranding.
Yes, there is. Weight Watchers laid out plans to provide not just behavioral support for women experiencing menopause, menopause but dispensing hormonal replacement therapies as well later this year.
I had a conversation with their new chief medical officer who says this move is very natural.
I mean we're talking about a company that has a large audience of 40 to 6 year old women, a large portion of which experience weight gain due to menopause.
So it sounds like they're doubling down on this very loyal base.
Do you think it'll work?
I mean this is something we've seen detailed in growth growth plans by arrival hims and hers, and it's something analysts have expected.
But details on the positioning of that hormonal business are still yet to come.
That was Amina Nyes from Reuters on Weight Watchers rebrand and bringing us to the end of World Business Report for today.
The producer was Lexi O 'Connor.
From me, Sam Fennick, thank you very much for listening.
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