Merlin Marr-Johnson

Donald Trump wants to bring back mining and mineral processing to the US – and he needs to do this if he’s to continue fighting wars. “You cannot claim to have a military strategy without a clear idea of your supply chains,” says economic journalist Wolfgang Münchau. “The specific advantage that both Russia and China have over the West is not simply their wealth of metals and minerals – it’s the fact that they can also process them. China’s expertise in processing its raw material is unparalleled.” Trump has exhorted America’s traditional allies to take responsibility for their own mineral supplies as well as their own defense, and to ditch economically ruinous energy policies. But will it work?

Copper has a nickname in the commodities market. It’s known as “Doctor Copper” because it’s so deeply integrated into the physical fabric of our lives and all the technology we depend on that its price reflects the health of the economy. “Gold is money, everything else is credit,” said J.P. Morgan more than a century ago. But copper is more than money. It’s modern human life. It is used in every corner of our technology, from houses to windfarms to warehouses. Which is why I think, while everyone’s still obsessing about gold, it’s worth taking a look at copper. Since the global financial crisis in 2008, stock markets may have reached new highs but the physical world of construction, infrastructure and manufacturing has never quite regained its old growth rate.