US President Donald Trump took significant tariff adjustment actions on Friday, exempting graphite, tungsten, uranium, gold bars, and other metals from his country-based tariff system, effectively agreeing to exclude these products from the US government's global tariff policy while adding silicone products to the taxable scope. These major changes will take effect on Monday under an executive order signed on Friday.
Trump's executive directive could also accelerate the implementation of customized trade cooperation agreements between the US 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 domestically in the US—such as specialty spices and coffee, as well as lesser-known niche metals.
This move formalizes the plan to exempt gold bars, a product long favored by US investors, from tariffs. Several weeks ago, a ruling by US Customs and Border Protection shocked global commodity traders and caused chaos in gold trading, as the ruling indicated that non-US produced gold bars would be subject to import taxes.
The presidential order indicates that these urgent tariff changes were made based on recommendations from senior US government officials. According to the initiative, "these adjustments are necessary and appropriate to address" the "national emergency" that Trump first declared when implementing his global country-based tariffs in April.
Furthermore, under this latest procedural shift, the US Trade Representative Office (USTR) and the Department of Commerce will be authorized to take action to implement framework trade agreements with other countries, such as the preliminary trade agreements Trump reached with the EU, 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," USTR and the Department of Commerce are empowered to implement framework agreements with other countries, so future implementation of tariff changes in these agreements will no longer require Trump to issue a new executive order each time. Going forward, specific tariff changes (including exemptions/reductions/list adjustments) that need to be implemented within framework agreements already negotiated with the EU, Japan, South Korea, and others can be implemented by the US Trade Representative (USTR) and the Department of Commerce under this mechanism, without requiring the president to sign a new executive order each time.
Trump's global tariffs are central to his broader efforts to address what he condemns as trade imbalances that pose threats to national security. Before significantly raising dozens of country-specific tax rates last month, the president had reached agreements with multiple economies to exchange lower tax rates for foreign governments' removal of barriers to US goods.
These tariffs and some agreements, formulated during a rushed process over several months, have drawn complaints from Wall Street investment institutions, who believe they could disrupt key markets and drive up prices for goods that cannot be grown or produced in the US.
The Trump administration's reciprocal tariffs are eliminating or exempting a range of mineral products, with a focus on key materials used in aerospace, consumer electronics, medical devices, and other technological sectors. Pseudoephedrine, antibiotics, and other critical drugs—which are already subject to another ongoing trade investigation by the Department of Commerce—have also received new exemption orders.
However, in addition to continuing to tax silicone products, President Trump has also comprehensively extended his reciprocal tariff subcategories to resins and aluminum hydroxide.
Why did Trump choose to exempt gold, tungsten, and uranium from his global tariff policy? Overall, these exempted categories are either systemic financial and settlement assets (gold) or critical materials that "choke the US neck" (tungsten, uranium)—imposing universal tariffs would instead raise costs for key US domestic industries or disrupt US national security supply; exemptions better align with the comprehensive goals of financial stability, manufacturing and defense, and energy security.
Gold is crucial to the normal operation of US and global financial markets, while tungsten and uranium are vital to manufacturing/defense and energy security. Universal taxation could harm the total cost of ownership (TCO) and resilience of key domestic industries, while exemptions can provide targeted shock absorption.
The corresponding executive order clearly provides a framework that "products that cannot be grown/mined/naturally produced domestically or are insufficiently supplied can receive zero tariffs," and authorizes USTR and the Department of Commerce to flexibly implement according to framework agreements.
For the US military-industrial complex—the core of American hegemony—tungsten is crucial and extremely dependent on imports. First, there is no doubt that extreme physical properties support high-end weapons, making tungsten suitable for withstanding high temperatures, high pressure, and enormous kinetic energy. In armor-piercing cores and ultra-high kinetic penetrators, tungsten alloys are the preferred material to replace depleted uranium, maintaining high penetration without producing radioactive contamination. In aerospace and missile hot-end components, rocket nozzles, electron beam heating elements, and other military applications, all rely on tungsten's high-temperature stability.
Broad industrial demand amplifies the "chokehold" effect, with cemented carbide tools/drill bits accounting for approximately 60% of US tungsten consumption, affecting high-end manufacturing chains in aviation, automotive, energy, and other sectors.
For Trump's major push for US nuclear power revival 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 paramount importance and is also extremely dependent on imports.
Trump has already signed multiple presidential executive orders to promote US nuclear industry reform, including expanding US nuclear energy scale, nuclear industry chains, and shortening nuclear project approval cycles, sounding the horn for America's nuclear power revival.
Uranium is one of the most important fuels in nuclear energy production, especially uranium-235, which releases enormous energy through nuclear fission. In nuclear reactors, uranium's fission chain reaction is precisely controlled to generate stable thermal energy for electricity generation. Nuclear energy, as an efficient and clean energy form, is closely related to uranium's physical properties and fission reactions.