Rio Tinto Ltd (ASX: RIO) and BHP Group Ltd (ASX: BHP) shares look to be broadly shrugging off the latest tariff bombshell lobbed by United States President Donald Trump.
In morning trade on Wednesday, both of the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) mining stocks are outperforming the benchmark index.
The Rio Tinto share price is up 0.2% at $108.42, while BHP shares are just about flat at $38.23 apiece. The ASX 200 is down 0.5% at this same time.
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What's happening with the new Trump tariffs?
If you were hoping that the US President's global tariff campaign was nearing an end, Trump put an end to those hopes yesterday.
In news that could have a modest impact on both Rio Tinto and BHP shares down the road, Trump indicated that the US will impose a 50% import duty on copper.
"I believe the tariff on copper, we're going to make it 50%", Trump said.
He did not specify whether that would apply solely for the raw metal, or if it would also apply to refined materials like copper wire.
With the new copper tariff expected to take effect within the next month or so, copper prices went through the roof. Copper futures rocketed a record 17% intraday following the news.
Copper futures have since dipped 3.0% over the last 24 hours, according to data from Bloomberg.
How might this impact Rio Tinto and BHP shares?
Rio Tinto and BHP shares both derive a growing percentage of their revenue from mining copper.
For its full 2024 calendar year results, Rio Tinto reported underlying earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of US$3.4 billion from its copper sales. That was up 75% from the US$2.0 billion reported in 2023.
As for BHP, in H1 FY 2025, the mining giant reported copper production of 987,000 tonnes, up 10% year on year. Underlying EBITDA from BHP's copper sales was up 44% year on year to US$5.0 billion.
This saw copper contribute 39% of BHP's total underlying EBITDA for the half.
As for the nine months to 31 March, BHP reported that total copper production increased 10% to a record 1.50 million tonnes.
Now, Rio Tinto and BHP shares look to be weathering the pending Trump copper tariffs well.
That's because the miners, and indeed Australian producers as a whole, sell most of their copper to China and other Asian trading partners.
But Rio Tinto and BHP could face some copper tariff pain from their jointly owned Escondida copper mine, located in Chile, with some of the copper produced at the mine exported to the US.
However, Rio Tinto's US-based copper assets will be exempt from the tariffs. Which could offer some tailwinds for Rio Tinto shares if copper prices remain elevated.
If their proposed mega-copper JV project in the US state of Arizona gets the green light, both Rio Tinto and BHP shares could also benefit.
