Unsurprisingly, many Australian-based mining companies have turned their attentions to the commodity, going in search of copper (and sometimes copper-gold) projects of varying mineralisation styles across the globe.

Let’s consider a handful of mid-range copper players trading (or who have recently traded) on the ASX – Celsius Resources (and its MCB project in the Philippines), Hot Chili (which is seeking the red metal at its Costa Fuego project in Chile), Xanadu Mines (and its Kharmagtai project in Mongolia), Rex Minerals (with South Australian project Hillside), and Sunstone Metals (and its Bramaderos project in Ecuador).

While all are operating in different jurisdictions, there are some commonalities between them – not least the fact that most are focused on porphyry copper mineralisation, with gold often associated with this.

Celsius Resources, for example, is progressing through the advanced Maalinao-Caigutan-Biyog (MCB) project 320 kilometres north of Manila, which has a mineral resource estimate of 338 million tonnes (Mt), with grades of 0.47% copper (Cu) and 0.12 grams per tonne (g/t) gold (Au) defined as porphyry mineralisation.

Crucially, it also boasts a high-grade sub vertical core, representing approximately 28% of the MRE. This amounts to 49 Mt at 0.85% Cu and 0.41g/t Au – all in the indicated resource category – and is the focal point for Celsius’ optimised mine plan.

One important component in development of this project – which has progressed through a scoping study, feasibility study and metallurgical work – is support from the Philippines’ government.

This was underscored in February this year, when Celsius told investors it was set to receive a bridge loan facility worth US$76.4 million from Maharlika Investment Corporation – the Philippines’ sovereign wealth fund – to progress development work on MCB.

With strong numbers coming in from metallurgical work – which showed potential for copper recoveries of 94% and gold recovery of 79% through flotation processing – together with the granting of a 25-year mining permit, and the finalisation of the mine plan, the project is moving through to the early works stage, supported by the government’s financial support.

This work will include an update to the feasibility study and front-end engineering design, plus construction of a main access road.

Celsius’ MCB Project has strong government and community support plus it’s fully permitted and shovel ready. With the Philippines Sovereign Wealth expected to fully fund the project, this project has a clear path to near term production in 2027.

In Mongolia, Xanadu Mines Ltd (ASX:XAM) has been progressing its 2.2 billion tonne Kharmagtai project through a series of development milestones, guided by its strategic partnership with Zijin Mining Group Co. Ltd, which kicked off in April 2022.

Kharmagtai is located in Mongolia’s South Gobi porphyry copper province – where the massive Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold operations are also found, 120 kilometres to the south – and it is also well into the thick of development milestones.

The most significant of these was a prefeasibility study (PFS) completed in October 2024, which confirmed the project as a globally significant, long life, low cost, low risk future copper-gold mine, with a projected mine life of 29 years and production ranges of 60-80ktpa copper and 165-170kozpa gold production during the first and second stages of expansion.

Achievement of the PFS and a maiden ore reserve – comprised of 1.6Mt copper (Cu) and 4.0Moz gold (Au) in the indicated category – also enabled Zijin to take over ownership of the project under the JV, with this company now being the main operator, set to push Kharmagtai through to the next stages, culminating in a final investment decision (FID). The ownership transition also vesting of two 6-month options at Xanadu’s sole discretion.

The next big milestone on the agenda is a bankable feasibility study, which is anticipated for completion in the second quarter of 2026.

When it comes to copper, Latin American countries have also been the focus of attention, and Hot Chili Ltd (ASX:HCH) is diving into this region with its Costa Fuego project – located in in Chile’s northern Atacam region – which holds an MRE of 927 million tonnes (at 0.379% Cu and 0.1g/t Au).

In March 2025, the company announced completion of a PFS which revealed strong production metrics over an expected mine life of 20 years, with increased yield from both metals during that time.

The company is expecting average annual production of 116,000 tonnes per annum (tpa) of copper equivalent, including 95,000 tonnes of copper and 48,000 ounces (oz) of gold during the primary production period of 14 years from Costa Fuego.

Financial metrics were also strong according to the PFS, including a life-of-mine C1 cash cost of US$1.38 per pound and an all-in-sustaining cost of US$1.85/lb (both estimated net of by-product credits).

Moving elsewhere in the South American continent, we find yet another porphyry copper-gold project – this time Sunstone Metals’ (ASX:STM) Bramaderos play, which is located in southern Ecuador.

This country is a ‘rapidly emerging mining jurisdiction’, according to Sunstone, and Bramaderos itself is a top discovery in both the red and yellow metal, providing the company with several pathways to develop a mining centre producing more than 10 million ounces of gold equivalent (AuEq).

Sunstone wants to begin through the establishment of a high-grade gold-silver mine built around the Limon epithermal system, which was first discovered through drilling in early 2023, with a discovery hole which intersected 176.7 metres at 1.1g/t AuEq (0.97g/t gold and 10.1g/t silver).

However, a second key stage will revolve around development of the advanced Brama-Alba porphyry target, which holds a resource of156Mt at 0.53g/t AuEq, producing 2.7Moz AuEq overall.

This is augmented by an exploration target of between 3.3Moz and 8.6Moz AuEq within 255Mt to 360Mt at a grade between 0.40 and 0.74g/t AuEq.

Sunstone is engaging in discussions with various entities to consider partnership options for development of Bramaderos, although timeframes are as yet unknown.

Finally, closer to home is the Hillside project in South Australia’s Gawler Craton, defined as one of the country’s largest undeveloped copper projects with a MRE of 1.9Mt Cu and 1.5Moz Au, developed around Iron Oxide Copper Gold (IOCG) mineralisation.

This was being developed by Rex Minerals, which delisted in October 2024 after the company was acquired in July by Indonesian outfit MACH Metals Australia, in a deal worth $393 million.

Hillside is often described as ‘shovel-ready’, with the state government approving a program for environment protection and rehabilitation (PEPR) for Stage One of the project in July 2020.

The project is expected to develop around the processing and shipping of ore from an open pit mine, with the latter expected to last for 11 years.

Donald Trump’s announcement of levies against multiple countries last Wednesday kicked off a trend of investor uncertainty, wiping US$2.5B from Wall Street as threats of retaliation trickled in. By Friday, China had made good on the threat – hitting US goods with a 34% tariff (following Trump’s bump up to 54% of the levy against Chinese goods), and Wall Street inevitably ended the week in a panic.

The S&P 500 ended Friday’s session with a slump of 6%, while the Nasdaq dropped 5.8%, setting up Australia’s bourse for a bloodbath on Monday. On that day, the ASX200 opened with a slump of 6.2% – representing the single worst intraday fall for Australian markets since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Throughout this week, global markets, including the ASX have been up and down like a fiddler’s elbow, as Trump destabilised things again by promising to boost the levy against China to 104%, and then calming them down by retracting tariffs against all other countries – for the time being at least.

This provoked a euphoric reaction on Wall Street on Wednesday, with the S&P 500 marking its biggest gain in five years – rising by 9.5%, while the Dow Jones picked up its biggest gain since 2020, with a jump of 7.9%, and the Nasdaq zoomed up 12.1% – its largest one-day rise since 2001.

However, it is understood that the President’s walking back of his tariff announcements was provoked by a shocking development: investors’ retreat from US government bonds, which indicated a lack of faith in the stability of the world’s largest economy. And alongside that, the R word is still in the air.

With all that in mind, it’s worth looking back at where the global economy has slumped and recovered in the past.

To find the first contemporary example of a global financial crash, we have to go back to October 1987 – specifically Monday 19 October, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average collapsed by 22.6%, this marking the biggest one-day stock market drop in history, and the most significant downturn since the Great Depression (1929-1939).

This event, dubbed ‘Black Monday’ was largely caused by the overrepresentation of foreign investors in the US financial system, who had been behind an escalation in stock prices in the lead-up to the crash. Alongside this, the crash was accelerated by the recent introduction of ‘portfolio insurance’ by US investment firms; these involved the large-scale use of options and derivatives which contributed to the crash.

What was interesting about this crash is that the period leading up to it – the first half of 1987 – had been marked by a bull market, in which the DJIA had gained 44% in 7 months, prompting murmurs of an asset bubble.

However, in the background, economic growth was slowing, while inflation was on the uptick, and US exports were under pressure due to the country’s strong currency. After the Commerce Department announced a larger than expected trade deficit on 14 October, the dollar fell in value, interest rates rose and there were heightened expectations that the Federal Reserve would tighten its policy.

The week which followed saw several markets begin to post large daily losses, followed by an incident of ‘triple witching’ (when monthly expirations of options and futures contracts occur on the same day) on Friday 16 October, which occurred alongside selloffs, with the DJIA losing 4.6% by the end of the session. The next day, Treasury Secretary James Baker sought to narrow the growing trade deficit by threatening to de-value the US dollar, and by the time the bell rang on Monday, Asian markets had begun to tumble.

The reverberations were felt around the world, with global bourses experiencing sharp losses (with the worst being New Zealand, which plunged by 60%), and the Financial Times 100 Index in London falling by 25% between 19 and 23 October, while the Nikkei Dow Jones in Tokyo was down 25%.

Indeed, the lesson of this crash was the importance of watching the interconnectedness of world markets, and this could be seen in the behaviour of investors who stayed up late to watch how the Japanese market’s performance might provide clues to what would happen the next trading day on Wall Street.

It was, in the end, rectified mostly by the US Federal Reserve’s decision to pump liquidity into the market, as announced on 20 October.

More recent was the economic turmoil which goes by several names, including the Great Recession and the Global Financial Crisis (better known as the GFC in Australia), which saw the most severe economic downturn since the Great Depression, and the longest recession since World War II.

It was precipitated by a collapse in the US housing market, starting in early 2007, when mortgage-backed securities (MBS) tied to US real estate (plus their derivatives) slumped in value, causing a liquidity crisis which grew throughout the year, spreading to global institutions.

Behind this was a trend which had been growing throughout the early noughties, of banks issuing consumer credit at a lower prime rate (the interest rate charged to ‘prime’, low-risk customers), as well as issuing it to those with a riskier financial profile, at higher interest rates.

Consumers spent the cash on a range of goods, but especially houses. This was fine so long as housing prices remained high, but by 2005, they began to fall, and by June 2006, the Fed had raised interest rates to 5.25% (from 1.25 in June 2004), meaning buyers experienced increasing difficulty in paying back their loans. Unable to sell, they often ended up owing more than their home was worth.

What connected this to US markets was the growing practice of securitisation, in which banks tended to parcel hundreds and occasionally thousands of subprime mortgages together with more stable forms of debt, selling them as securities (bonds) to other banks or investors. Those associated strongly with sup-prime mortgages became known as MBS. As housing prices began to fall, this impacted the latter’s value.

With multiple subprime lenders beginning to file for bankruptcy, and investment banker Bear Stearns needing a bailout in early 2008, the crisis continued to build, culminating in the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers – the United States’ fourth largest investment bank – in September that year.

This was the iconic moment of the recession, and it sparked slumps on numerous stock exchanges around the world, many of these falling by around 10%. The S&P 500 Index ended the year 2008 almost 40% lower, its largest yearly fall in history. 

The solution was a new and tentative policy from the Federal Reserve called quantitative easing (QE), which involved injecting liquidity into the system to maintain credit flows. This was introduced to the US in early 2009, with Europe and Japan soon following suit.

Other countries took a different route: such as China, which pumped US$600 billion into its economy via a spending program, while interest rates around the world were also reduced, often to zero or below.

Australia was another which chose the spending approach, with the government sending cheques valued at $900 to millions of households, and providing wider subsidy programs. As a result, the country was able to avoid entering recession during the period, and unemployment never tipping beyond 5.8% (compared to 10% in the US).

While all this may appear behind us, it is worth noting that talk of an escalating US-China trade war continues to spur uncertainty, with the ASX200 turning red again on Friday (down 1% in the afternoon), so there may be another turn in the rollercoaster yet to come.

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Both can significantly influence the experience of shoppers on one end and the economic viability and practices of producers on the other.

The first of these has been a headline issue in the last two years, with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) taking the supermarket giants to court in September 2024, accusing them of misleading marketing via Woolworths’ “Prices Dropped” and Coles’ “Down Down” campaigns.

However, in a follow-up enquiry completed in February 2025, the regulator expanded its concerns into the relationship between producers (including agricultural and horticulture growers) and the supermarkets they do business with, finding the dominance of ‘Colesworth’ is equally problematic there.

In its ‘Supermarkets Inquiry’, the ACCC confirmed the significant market share held by Woolworths and Coles, acknowledging they accounted for 38% and 29% of supermarket grocery sales in Australia.

In third place was ALDI at 9%, while wholesaler Metcash – which supplies independent supermarkets – came up last at 7% in the supermarket rankings.

This formation plays an important role in shaping the national product pricing environment, with the regulator stating that “Coles and Woolworths have limited incentive to compete vigorously with each other on price.”

It added that while ALDI offered a viable low-cost alternative for shoppers – and could therefore act as a “source of price constraint” on the two giants, especially when there was product overlap across all three, it did not compete with them head-to-head across the whole range of products.

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Independent grocery stores – represented by Metcash – often played an important role in servicing local needs, particularly in areas outside Australia’s urban centres, where Woolworths, Coles, and ALDI aren’t always present.

(The ACCC also noted independent stores had been losing market share over time.)

Crucially, the inquiry confirmed the market structure of Australia’s supermarket sector which it described as “oligopolistic” – was unlikely to change soon.

When it comes to the supply chain for fresh produce in Australia, supermarkets – particularly the two majors – are influential players, and this is particularly enhanced when it comes to the horticulture sector.

Woolworths has been buying up between 20% and 25% of the country’s fruit and vegetable supply (excluding processing), while Coles procured approximately 15%.

The ACCC has acknowledged that due to this framework, business arrangements negotiated between supermarkets and growers influenced the production cycle, the pricing of goods, and also the viability of some growers’ and producers’ businesses.

To find out more, the regulator held a series of roundtables with farmers and wholesalers across Australia to gain insight into how farmers and wholesalers perceive this relationship and to hear about their experiences within the supermarket supply chain.

What they found was many suppliers were reluctant to raise concerns about the trading relationship due to fear of retribution; they feared the latter companies being able to practice ‘monopsony’ power in these relationships.

This refers to a situation in which a company can affect the overall market price of a product through its control of a significant chunk of upstream purchases. It can take the form of a price reduction (when the company buys less of it), or even a price increase (when the company purchases more).

The inquiry found many producers felt they had “little choice but to agree to highly unfavourable terms, including lower prices than they would expect if Coles and Woolworths faced greater competition from other buyers,” in addition to feeling under pressure to use ancillary services (such as freight or marketing) that came from the supermarkets in question, even if these were perceived to offer substandard services.

Also highlighted was the problem of information asymmetries which were sometimes taken advantage of by Coles and Woolworths: Resulting in suppliers themselves being unable to make the best business decisions for themselves.

The ACCC concluded protections offered under existing regulatory codes – such as the Food and Grocery Code – should be strengthened to support suppliers.

The unequal relationship between farmers and supermarket buyers may also have a detrimental effect on the former’s capacity to adopt sustainable practices that benefit Australia’s food system overall, according to the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF).

ACF corporate campaigner Bonnie Graham said several of the concerns raised by the ACCC’s inquiry reflected wider problems of sustainable food production and protection of the environment.

“The competition regulator has highlighted how the supermarket giants’ market dominance means farmers are less able to make informed decisions about how to invest in their businesses,” she explained to HotCopper.

“When Aussie producers don’t have the confidence to invest in their farms, this negatively affects the long-term viability and sustainability of Australia’s food system.

“Many farmers want to adopt nature and climate-friendly production methods to future-proof their businesses and Australia’s food security: the major supermarkets should support their suppliers in making these changes that benefit all of us.”

Ms Graham said adjacent issues connecting food production and environmental sustainability had been raised in the ACF’s Future of Food report, released in July 2024, which assessed 20 major food companies in Australia on how they measured up to 37 indicators of sustainable practice.

A crucial issue for the companies – which included Coles and Woolworths, McDonald’s, Hungry Jacks, Aldi, Bega, and Sanitarium – was their inability to track commodities back to the farm level, with only nine of 20 being able to.

“Food supply chains are incredibly complex, with most food companies purchasing ingredients from middle suppliers, not from the farmers themselves,” Ms Graham said.

“There are often several suppliers and processors between the farm gate and the factory, making it harder for food companies to trace their ingredients back to farm level.”

This made it extremely hard to know how the associated supply chains might be impacting nature, according to the report.

The Future of Food also emphasised the importance of companies following international best practices in setting deforestation targets connected to their production, with some, like ALDI, already ahead on this issue.

“ALDI is a multinational company with headquarters in the EU, and the EU has stronger laws on deforestation and supply chain sustainability than Australia,” Ms Graham said.

“This is most likely the biggest factor in Aldi becoming the first Australian supermarket to adopt a deforestation-free policy.

“Since the Future of Food report was published, Woolworths has also set a deforestation-free target for its products by the end of 2025. Woolworths’ commitment includes beef, which is the biggest driver of deforestation in Australia.”

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The 36-point questionnaire was sent in mid-March to researchers whose projects – across a range of disciplines, including the medical and physical sciences, foreign aid, and defence – involve collaboration with U.S. scholars and institutions.

Several topics broached in the document refer to Donald Trump’s broad policy of pushing back against what he refers to as ‘woke ideology’ – as manifested in his executive orders recognising only two genders, and banning programs and grants connected to DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion).

To wit, the questionnaire asked whether the target research related to DEI, if it complied with Trump’s two-gender policy, and whether its participants were receiving funding from Russia, Cuba, China, or Iran.

While scholars were often asked to explain their research, especially in connection with funding, this new line of questioning hasn’t been broached before – and certainly not in this way, University of Sydney international relations expert Dr Stuart Rollo told HotCopper after the questionnaire was sent out.

“The questionnaire is totally unprecedented, as far as I am aware,” he explained.

“As part of the process of applying for grants from American government [and other] institutions, applicants will often be asked to describe how their project advances gender equity, principles of environmental sustainability, and things of that nature.”

“But,” he continued, “I have never seen a retroactive questionnaire with such directly politicised conditions applied broadly across institutions.”

While funding was sometimes restricted for projects involving partners from countries like China, Iran, or Russia, Mr Rollo explained, this questionnaire’s direct reference was quite unusual. “Nothing of such a sweeping and immediate nature” has been seen before.

Given the United States is Australia’s biggest research partner – with our universities receiving $400 million in funding from the U.S. government in 2024 – it is important that we figure out where the Trump administration is going with this, and how Australian institutions should position themselves.

While the President’s culture war rhetoric is not new, nor unexpected, Dr Rollo says it’s important to remember much of the sentiment underpinning it was supported by people both in the States and Australia.

“The reality is many regular people in Australia and the States do see universities and other ‘elite’ institutions as embodying a sort of vanguard progressive politics that they feel is out of step with the values of society more broadly,” he said.

“The Trump administration is using this sentiment to push a much more radical policy.”

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The starting point of all this, he added, was the belief – among Trump and loyalists such as Steve Bannon and Elon Musk – that universities, media, and the public service are parts of a “permanent bureaucracy” (or “deep state”) influencing how societies develop, outside of simple electoral politics.

“DOGE, cuts to foreign aid, countering ‘woke’ education etcetera is not simply about prosecuting a conservative vs progressive culture war it is about the executive branch of the US government waging all-out war on a range of other institutions of power in our society that tend to balance executive power out,” Dr Rollo said.

He added: “This extends to the judiciary and many other fields as well.”

The questionnaire also says something about how Trump and his gov’t are planning to interact with the rest of the world and its institutions: A tendency on display during his tumultuous meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and in the administration’s proposal to secure critical minerals in that country.

“The Trump coalition has a radical view for the future of the United States and the structure of the global order,” Dr Rollo said.

“It’s about moving away from a complex system of institutions and alliances that operate under American leadership – sometimes seen as the ‘American Empire’ a.k.a. the ‘rules-based order’) towards a system of exploitative hegemony, where the U.S. relies much more on military strength, coercion, and other ‘sticks’ rather than ‘carrots’ to ensure the compliance of weaker states and secure as much of the global economic pie for itself as possible.”

When it came to initiatives such as this strange new questionnaire – and the potential threat to research funding which it represents – Dr Rollo said it was unlikely to benefit the United States in the long term.

“As far as funding to Australian institutions goes, the Trump administration seems to have a very unsophisticated understanding of American soft power,” he said.

‘They are doing a great deal of damage in a very short time to a set of arrangements that, whether you agree with them in terms of cultural values, serve to promote American national interests and influence here and elsewhere around the world.”

Depending on the discipline, there were swathes of academic research that would likely be impacted by Trump’s approach. “It is likely to reshape research in the social and political sciences a fair bit, perhaps public health too, but not a great deal in the hard sciences, computing etcetera,” Dr Rollo added.

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Rhetoric accompanying these levy threats has been equally uncompromising, with many leaders finding themselves the target of a Trumpian talking-to about how their country may have exploited the goodwill of the U.S. and its economy.

On Wednesday (U.S. time), it was the turn of Irish taoiseach Micheal Martin – meeting Trump and his deputy J D Vance for the annual meeting before St Patrick’s Day – who was scolded about Ireland snapping up American pharmaceutical companies.

Similarly, Australia has recently been accused – this time by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick – of apparently “dumping” excess aluminium on the U.S. market. This is being used as the justification for 25% tariffs hitting imports of the metal, in addition to steel, which rolled out in Week 11.

But perhaps the most standout (and head-scratching) example is the U.S.’s northern neighbour, Canada, which is being slapped with the same 25% tariffs on its steel and aluminium production as well as an across-the-board levy (another 25%) on all Canadian goods flowing into the U.S.

The latter was announced almost as soon as Trump came into office, with the President saying he would be targeting Canada and Mexico jointly in response to drugs – particularly fentanyl – coming into the U.S. from north and south.

Of course, this garnered a reaction, plus a series of retaliatory actions which indicated the economic and political relationship between the countries was souring.

On March 10, Ontario Governor Doug Ford announced electricity normally flowing from the province into three U.S. states – Michigan, Minnesota, and New York – would be hit with a 25% surcharge to answer Trump’s metals tariffs.

This prompted a threat by the President to push the latter to 50%, before a compromise was eventually reached between Ford and U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick that will facilitate a rollback of the electricity charges. Levies of 25% against Canadian metals still went ahead on Wednesday, March 12.

The previous day, Trump suggested the best way to resolve the issue would be for Canada to become the 51st state. “This would make all Tariffs, and everything else, totally disappear,” he said.

It’s difficult to overstate how irrational Trump’s approach seems to be – not only his threats against the Canadian economy, but also the language wrapping it – given the integrated relations between the two in previous years.

Energy is a great place to start, with Canada and the U.S. being each other’s largest trade partner in this sector, among which is an established, nearly century-long trade in electricity underpinned by an integrated grid.

In the past two decades, reliance has been increasingly one-way, with the U.S. importing more electricity than it exports; this affects 22 states. According to Canadian nonprofit media organization Narwhal, the province of Ontario is responsible for providing $700 million worth of electricity – that is, power to 1.5 billion homes.

Professor Wesley Widmaier – from Australian National University (ANU)’s Department of International Relations – believes the tensions between the two can be compared to a personal relationship.

“There are some cases where just like in a relationship, you can say something to your partner where it changes everything,” he said.

“Trump’s ill-considered rhetoric about annexing Canada has affected what could be a lasting change like relations between the two sides, the two people.

“I was just in the U.S., and many Canadians are quite angry and offended, and that affects people where they live.”

Professor Widmeier said Canada was just one country which had been hit with uncertainty over its working relationship with the U.S. going forward.

“In the context of Europe, he’s called Article 5 into doubt by seeming to side with the Russians against Ukrainians on foreign policy,” he said.

“For Australia, I don’t think we’ve reached that point yet, I don’t think he’s engaged in any really egregious rhetoric that would change people’s views of the United States on the ground, so we can play that game of biding and waiting to see to what extent Trump himself pulls away from some of these policies.

“But it’s led to a reconsideration and in some places a deep questioning.”

Certainly, when it comes to Canada, the trade war doesn’t seem to be slowing down any time soon, with the country promising to match the U.S. “dollar for dollar” in response to the 25% metal tariffs which came in on Wednesday, announcing levies against $30 billion worth of imports from the country – that is, its own 25% tariffs against American steel, computers, and sports equipment.

Professor Widmeier said when it came to geopolitical engagements around defense, Donald Trump had returned to some longstanding preoccupations – particularly that of the U.S.’ allies relying too much on it – but had delivered these very differently.

“Burden sharing has always been an issue between the U.S. and the Europeans: it goes back to the Kennedy administration in the 1960s,” he said.

“What’s different this time – and it goes back to Trump’s statements from his first term – a suggestion that if NATO allies aren’t paying their 2% or whatever the exact amount is, that the US might consider not protecting them.

“It’s taking what was an iron-clad alliance and changing it to something transactional.

“So again, before Trump, if the Russians invaded Lithuania, Estonia, or Latvia, the U.S. – and NATO – would respond quite seriously. You have to think that that might not happen now.”

Professor Widmaier said it was plausible this was what the US President was aiming for long term: Particularly given the support he’d received in states most affected by the free trade, and Chinese dominance in manufacturing.

“Free trade creates winners and losers, protectionism creates winners and losers,” he said.

“To the extent that Trump has a constituency – ‘Build American Manufacturing’ states, the blue wall, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, – they all want to bring those jobs back.

“To the extent that he’s pressuring companies to build factories in the States and that would bring jobs back to the States, it’s not implausible.

“Would that be a rational economic policy? Is that the best allocation of goods and services? No. So there’d be many more losers than there’d be winners.

“The case for free trade is the winners compensate the losers and everyone’s still better off. The problem is for the last 50 years, the losers from free trade have gone pretty uncompensated, and that’s one of the reasons for Trump’s rise.”

Undoubtedly one of the main things to say about Trump’s tariff policy, and the back-and-forth reactions it’s provoked, is that world markets have so far been taking a significant hit thanks to economic uncertainty.

Here in Australia, the ASX200 has experienced four consecutive weekly declines on the back of Trump’s levy threats, and Wall Street has experienced a similar downturn. Professor Widmaier said this would be an issue the President could not ignore.

“I can tell you, when I talk to people back in the United States, stock market swoon has gotten a lot of people’s attention,” he said.

“Americans have their retirement funds tied up in 401K accounts – which are bundles of stock market investments – so when people see the stock market go down, they see their retirement savings go down, and Trump is aware of this.

“And meeting – as he did recently – with the business executives round table, one can imagine this explains a bit of his erratic back and forth kind of reactions.”

The White House has commented that some short-term pain might be necessary for Trump’s trade plan to be realised. And this could be strategic.

“When he’s warning people, when he’s suggesting that a recession is likely, that’s a little more esoteric for people,” Professor Widmaier said.

“And there’s a saying in politics, ‘get your recession out of the way early’.

“Dick Cheney, when the Bush administration back in 2000 took power, Cheney was very quick to declare that the US was likely to head into a recession, because that’s a recession you can blame on the outgoing guy, and 4 years is a long time, so people aren’t going to remember it, they want to get it out of the way.”

He added that while many were talking about the potential impact of tariffs on inflation, there was not likely to be a direct effect, although the instability brought on by constantly shifting policy was something to watch.

“When people say that tariffs are going to cause inflation, I’m sceptical to the extent that these price increases are sector-specific, one-off price increases,” Professor Widmaier said.

“A one-off increase in prices because of a tariff on a particular good – if it doesn’t become embedded in people’s expectations – will not cause prolonged inflation.

“If there are constantly increasing tariffs, where he’s got 25%, then 50%, and cyclical tariffs, and things start to feed on themselves, yes that will be inflationary.”

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Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the U.S. – then led by Joe Biden – was one of several countries which provided military, humanitarian, and financial aid to Ukraine in addition to military intelligence.

But much of this hangs in the balance in the wake of the Oval Office meeting, in which President Trump – long noted for his closeness to Russian leader Vladimir Putin – accused Zelensky of not quite being sufficiently grateful for U.S. support, and told him he was “gambling with World War Three.”

Vance followed by asking, “Have you said ‘thank you’ once this entire meeting? No.”

Departing the White House, Zelensky went to meet with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer in London for a summit there on 2 March to discuss how European nations – alongside Canada – could contribute to Ukraine’s defence during the war.

But questions remain: What this support will look like long term, how these countries might configure themselves around the U.S. if it cuts off support to Ukraine – and how that country might avoid such a consequence.

Making things right with Washington certainly seems to be on Zelensky’s agenda: A few days after his confrontation with Trump and Vance, he used social media platform X to express regret about how things had gone, and underline his commitment to diplomatic engagement around the war.

“Our meeting in Washington… did not go the way it was supposed to be,” he wrote. “It is regrettable it happened this way. It is time to make things right. We would like future cooperation and communication to be constructive.”

Zelensky added Ukraine was “ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible to bring lasting peace closer,” stating he’s willing to work under Trump to secure this.

Crucially, he said he was still willing to sign a deal with the United States for the proposed development of Ukrainian critical minerals, which had been on the agenda of his meeting at the White House the previous week.

It is not yet clear whether these overtures would be enough to overturn Trump’s suspension of all aid to Ukraine, nor a more recent announcement that claimed the sharing of military intelligence was also on hold.

The latter was announced by National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and followed by comments from CIA Director John Radcliffe on what Zelensky needed to do to reverse the policy.

Radcliffe claimed Trump “had a real question about whether President Zelensky was committed to the peace process, and he said, ‘Let’s pause, I want to give you a chance to think about that.'”

One of Trump’s major claims amid these tensions is that the United States has taken on an “unfair burden” – compared to European countries in particular – when it comes to providing support to Ukraine.

And if analysis is confined to military spending alone, this is certainly the case.

According to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a Germany-based research body scrutinising global issues, the U.S. contribution to military aid in the past three years is the equivalent of €64 billion, compared to €62 billion from European donors.

However, the trend is reversed when it comes to financial and humanitarian aid, with European sources allocating €70 billion to the US’ €50 billion. This also means the European contribution is higher overall.

Indeed, in a news report published as recently as February 14, the Kiel Institute argued “European donors have been the main source of aid to Ukraine since 2022, especially when it comes to financial and humanitarian aid.”

Altogether, it estimated Ukraine has received €267 billion of aid in the past three years, amounting to €80 billion a year. Of that, 49% was defined as military aid, 44% was financial support, 7% was humanitarian aid.

The Kiel Institute also suggested Trump’s election would be likely to keep U.S. contributions behind those of Europe after being overtaken by the latter in mid-2023, with European governments under pressure to step up their support initiatives.

Also noted was an increasing trend of collaboration between European nations for the provision of military weaponry, including the U.K.-led International Fund for Ukraine which combines contributions from multiple countries to buy military equipment for Ukraine, with a total allocation of €1.6 billion.

The majority of military aid across all donors had been sourced from existing arsenals, but more recently, weapons came to be sourced direct from industry.

While Trump’s decision to cut off military funding and the provision of intelligence to Ukraine present a significant setback for the eastern European country, it appears several of its other allies are intent on formulating a plan for its defense even beyond a peace deal.

At the March 2 summit – called by Starmer – the leaders of 18 countries, mostly in Europe, developed a four-point plan to reassure Ukraine of their support.

These included a pledge to continue providing military aid to the country, alongside economic pressure on Russia; a call for Ukrainian sovereignty to be recognised in any future peace talks; calls to boost the country’s defence capabilities even after peace was reached, to stave off a possible invasion; and agreement to form a ‘coalition of the willing’ to secure long term peace for Ukraine.

After the summit, which had been called just a week earlier, Starmer underlined the significance of this moment, and the decisions needing to be made, saying: “We are at a crossroads in history.”

While stating in the future, Europe might have to do the heavy lifting when it came to support of Ukraine – something which in the British case could involve “boots on the ground and planes in the air,” he acknowledged any agreement would need support from the U.S. – and has to include Russia.

Additional U.K. support was announced after the summit, comprising a £1.6 billion package of export finance to buy more than 5,000 air defence missiles, which would be built in Belfast.

This will add to an already announced loan of £2.2bn loan for more military aid, which has been backed by profits taken from frozen Russian assets.

With French President Emmanuel Macron, Starmer has also been progressing diplomatic efforts to secure peace, with both leaders separately telephoning Zelensky and Trump to finalise a deal in coming weeks.

No matter what happens next though, it will be a busy, and tense, few weeks ahead.

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US military spending is set to undergo a comprehensive review which aims to reallocate funds from programs deemed lower priority – chiefly those connected to climate change and DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) – seeking reductions of around 8% from the Pentagon’s annual budget over the next 5 years.

The figure given by Acting Deputy Defence Secretary Robert Salesses was $50 billion – to be reallocated during the 2026 fiscal year – which represents around 6% of the $876.8B defense budget anticipated under Joe Biden’s administration.

But across the next 5 years, the initiative – guided by Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth – could involve a funding reallocation of between $250B and $350B, and impact much of the civilian workforce.

The review marks another step in the path that Donald Trump’s administration has been on since its inauguration. In an interview in early February, the President signaled that Musk would be auditing the Pentagon, and would be likely to find ‘fraud and abuse’ at the agency.

In a separate interview with NBC, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz echoed these sentiments, commenting that the Pentagon’s shipbuilding processes in particular were ‘an absolute mess’, and that unnecessary spending was a feature across the board.

More recently, this desire for change has been followed up with the removal of several high-profile military personnel, including Airforce General C. Q Brown – the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff – whose appointment was questioned by Hegseth in his 2024 book, The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free.

In it, he wondered if race might have been a factor in Brown’s elevation to such a prestigious position, saying “Was it because of his skin colour? Or his skill? We’ll never know, but always doubt – which on its face seems unfair to C.Q. But since he has made the race card one of his biggest calling cards, it doesn’t really much matter.”

Also among those fired last week was Admiral Lisa Franchetti, who – as head of the US Navy – was the first woman to lead a military service

But although the budgetary review is likely to usher in significant change in programming at the Pentagon – marking as it does, the most profound assessment of defence spending since the Budget Control Act (BCA) in 2011 – this is not likely to have a negative impact on the United States’ capabilities, according to Research Fellow at UWA Defence and Security Institute Dr Troy Lee-Brown.

Commenting on Waltz’s suggestion that shipbuilding processes could be under the microscope, Dr Lee-Brown said this area of military spending would not be likely to receive cutbacks.

“I was interested in Hegseth’s response to those comments, that he supported DOGE’s efforts to cut costs at the Pentagon, but not to the detriment of US operational and tactical capabilities,” he said.

“In fact, Hegseth believes defence spending should increase so that will be an area to watch.

“A bill was introduced to Congress recently that set out the need to grow the US naval fleet and raised ways in which allied shipbuilders might contribute to shipbuilding.”

Despite the likely profundity of the incoming military review, and the shift to a new US administration, Dr Lee-Brown said he was confident that the country’s $368 billion AUKUS deal with Australia – in which the latter would buy 3 to 5 off-the-shelf Virginia-class boats in the early 2030s – was on-target.

“Phase One or the SRF-West component of AUKUS Pillar One seems to progressing quite well at the operational level,” he said.

“(Defence Minister Richard) Marles’ initial meeting with incoming Sec Def Hegseth was encouraging with regard to phase 2 or the acquisition of 3-5 USN Virginia submarines.

“The politics will remain tricky and lots of work still to be done.”

Trump and Waltz’s earlier comments came only days after Richard Marles’ visit to Washington, where he and Trump met to discuss AUKUS, with Australia announcing it had paid the first of six $797 million payments.

While Hegseth made assurances that the boats would be delivered on time, there remain concerns about the deal, given the apparent difficulty US shipbuilders are having producing even the 2 subs per year required for US procurement.

Dr Lee-Brown said he did not expect any significant changes as part of President Trump’s overall approach to US defence, but added that “The Trump admin will pressure allies to do and spend more on defence.”

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In the wake of the invasion, uncertainty and tension saw the latter push up to a price of $120 per barrel, and this period was followed by a spate of sanctions against Russia – chiefly targeting oil, gas and coal – from the United States, Canada, the European Union and other Western entities.

(This tendency has continued too, with the EU this week signing off on its 16th sanction package, which includes bans on the provision of services and technology that could facilitate completion of Russian LNG or crude oil products.)

In a general sense, the war prompted conversations about the need for countries to ensure their supply chains are both strong and diversified.

This is then augmented by the headwinds from recent U.S. tariff policies.

But Donald Trump’s recent interventions in international diplomacy concerning the war have introduced another topic into the chat: Ukraine’s richness in critical minerals, which the U.S. President wants to get his hands on.

The idea echoes early pronouncements from Trump that the States could acquire Greenland, an autonomous territory in the kingdom of Denmark rich in uranium, rare earth minerals, and iron ore.

After that, he moved his sights to the benefits that could be yielded from Ukraine in return for U.S. military aid. Initially, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy rejected a proposal that would have handed over half of the country’s critical mineral assets to the United States.

But after meetings which began over the weekend, it appears that Ukraine’s leaders have agreed to a deal which would enable the joint development of the country’s assets in return for strengthened relations with, and military support from, the United States.

According to media reports, the deal is set to be formalised on Friday, with Zelenskyy planning to fly to Washington for this purpose.

For much of its history, Ukraine was known for its contribution to agriculture: Unsurprisingly, given it accounts for a third of the globe’s most fertile land, with wheat, maize, and sunflower oil being some of its main exports in this sector.

But the country also holds 5% of the world’s mineral resources, including 20,000 deposits of 116 different types, of which only 15% (or 3,055) were active. Of the active deposits, 147 were metallic; 4,676 non-metallic.

More specifically, Ukraine has been noted for its supply of rare earth metals, titanium, lithium, beryllium, manganese, gallium, uranium, zirconium, graphite, apatite, fluorite, and nickel.

Titanium – a metal essential for the aerospace, medical, automotive and marine industries – is a particularly attractive commodity for the U.S., and Ukraine holds the world’s largest reserves and was a key supplier to the military sector before the invasion began.

Alongside this is lithium – a commodity whose fortune has fluctuated in recent years, as oversupply in China led to a price plunge, although this is a situation expected to correct itself in the next year or so, as supply wanes again.

Ukraine is home to one of Europe’s biggest confirmed reserves of the metal (at an estimate of 500,000 tonnes), including the Shevchenkivske field and the Kruta Balka block.

Since these are in regions close to the conflict – Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia respectively – their exploitation has not been possible for several years.

The country is also the fifth largest producer of gallium – an increasingly sought-after metal, whose price rose significantly last December due to Chinese export restrictions – in addition to supplying 90% of neon gas which is essential to the U.S. chip industry.

As nations vie to secure the materials critical for the ‘electrification of the globe’ and clean energy transition, Trump’s intentions in Eastern Europe may be ethically questionable, but not surprising.

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And while some of the ‘headwind’ trends are likely to continue – notably, questions around the strength of the Chinese economy and closer to home, the drag of domestic inflation – there are new ones to consider, such as a new U.S. presidency led by Trump.

At the same time, the drive towards clean energy, and new technological offerings is also likely to influence equity markets, largely on the upside.

Talking to HotCopper, David Harvie – Country Head of Sales for Saxo Markets Australia – reflected on the equity market’s performance throughout 2024 and shared his predictions and advice heading into 2025.

Generally strong returns were the most obvious overall trend.

“Anytime, anywhere, if an investor could sit down and say they had achieved double-digit returns, including dividends, in a portfolio, that’s a positive from an absolute perspective,” Mr Harvie explained.

He added certain sectors – such as banking – had also enjoyed a positive run, but warned Aus equities had also been burdened by both national and international factors.

“There were some headwinds as well: Domestic inflation, which we’re all acutely aware of, [and] commodity prices struggled,” Mr Harvie said.

“Those iron ore prices that we all watch very closely struggled, China has had its concerns, and oil has really gone nowhere.”

Investors should also be aware that the size of the Australian equity market – and what it “doesn’t have much of,” according to Harvie – will also shape returns.

“While our tech sector did really well, it’s just not big enough to have a material impact on the broader returns,” he said.

“If we flip it and look to the U.S. as a prime example, they were two and a half times that – or 25% – and that’s on price, not including dividends.

“Japan was in the ’20s with its accommodative policies, and European defence stocks are another example I’d point out.”

One trend that was likely to continue into ’25 was the strong performance of gold; supply of this commodity remained tight, Mr Harvie shared, expressing confidence in the possibility of silver outperforming expectations.

“The divergence between the two might be worth clicking on,” he said.

“On the negative side, unfortunately, we still see struggles for the Chinese economy and we see knock-on effects from that.

“We see a supply glut for oil – so those more traditional resources may struggle in the Australian context.”

However, a standout trend for investors to keep an eye on Down Under was the performance of metals associated with the ‘electrification of the globe,’ such as copper, lithium, and other critical minerals.

“I think a lot of investors are just focused on the demand piece, which seems to be very strong when it comes to electrification,” Mr Harvie continued.

“Lithium as an example is probably something that one would – also on the flipside – have a look at the supply equation and how that’s playing out.”

Of course, Australian and global equity markets ended 2024 with a striking influence to consider when it came to economic and political shifts, with Donald Trump becoming U.S. President for a second time.

Mr Harvie noted the moves and positioning seen on markets even before Trump’s second term began were noteworthy in themselves.

“Certainly in my lifetime I cannot recall in general media a more active conversation about an incoming President, so I think that’s instructive, and I think that goes beyond the personality, and more towards the potential policy,” he said.

“The second thing [to note] is arguably the ‘smart money’ – institutional money and retail money – has started to position portfolios ahead of the inauguration.

“So we’ve seen a tremendous run-up in Bitcoin, for example, we’ve seen a tremendous run-up in AI, albeit with some pullback with DeepSeek over the last week or so.”

Regarding the knock-on effects to the Aussie market of potential and already announced policies, tariffs with China were pointed out as a major issue.

“If we think about it from an Australian perspective, if all of a sudden an embargo or trade restriction around one of our largest partners China, what will be the knock-on effect for us,” Mr Harvie said.

“That could be quite a hindrance, again, when it comes to our resource-rich market.

“What will be the impact to labour markets is if there’s a reduction in immigration or indeed deportation… that’s something I would point to as well.”

At the same time, some of Trump’s policy pushes – such as the suggested annexation of Greenland – reflected more fundamental concerns about acquiring and retaining essential materials to facilitate growth in domestic energy resources.

“He’s talking about annexing Greenland. Why? Because of that critical minerals piece there,” Mr Harvie said.

“And when you pull all that back, ‘Make America Great Again’ is another way of saying, let’s bring sovereignty back home, let’s bring resource production back home, and make sure we’re self-sufficient as an economy.

“And that’s happening globally. The struggle for the Australian market is we just don’t have the scale to be able to do that – we are so reliant on our trading partners.

“An investor here should be quite careful and sector-specific for the Aussie market, but also as we say… turn one’s eyes abroad and start to look at those other global thematic, [the] industries and sectors which should probably benefit from Trump 2.0, and those other macro-economic factors.”

Turning to trends among global tech stocks, Mr Harvie highlighted the fascinating (or horrifying, depending on your perspective) story of Chinese AI startup DeepSeek, whose launch wiped out U.S. technology stocks including sector darling and market-leading marker Nvidia only a week ago.

The issue, he said, was that many of the top tech stocks were not prepared.

“Those stocks are almost priced for perfection… they’re priced for solid growth and lack of a player like DeepSeek coming along, and that’s a mini–Black Swan event,” he said.

“That’s why you saw prices take a tumble very quickly. On the flip side, 48 hours later, a reasonable amount of those prices has been made back.”

But the DeepSeek story might also give impetus to other companies wanting to jump into this space, he added.

“It also goes to the fact that where there’s super normal pricing power, we’re probably going to see – in fact, we’ve already started to see with DeepSeek – some of that attention towards [the narrative of] ‘how can other companies, other countries get in on the act?’,” Mr Harvie said.

For investors, such an event could provide guidance when it came to picking stocks.

“It’s back to investor basics 101: Where am I invested? What assets do I have? Where am I invested globally, and what themes do I subscribe to?” he added.

“That’s a top-down approach. The bottom-up approach is then obviously picking the stocks that live within that and ensuring that those stocks that one has picked represent an adequate proportion of one’s portfolio.

“If you’re over-indexing in Nvidia or whatever the case may be, you do run the risk of the next DeepSeek coming along and mucking around with your returns.”

Looking at the equity market as a whole, Mr Harvie said the keyword – even if it was a tad overused – was “diversification.”

“I think that term gets thrown around a lot, and maybe as a trader or investor, we’re a bit blasé when we hear it,” he said.

“But if we think about it, how that translates is really tapping into what’s happening in the real world. What’s happening in the real world is nations are bringing capacity home, they’re bringing chip-making home, energy production home when they can, and that’s very relevant with large economies like the U.S.

“It’s also relevant in Europe: We’ve seen NATO countries leaning into their defence capacity on the back of what’s been happening with Russia, but also Trump coming in and demanding those countries spend an X amount of their GDP on defence, which is why we’ve seen that be such a strong performer globally in 2024.”

Alongside these macro themes would be the likely vibrant performance in precious metals, and the importance of energy sources and the stocks and sectors attached to that.

“My advice would be [to] go back to macroeconomics, look at those global themes and see how you can position your portfolio to best take advantage,” he said.

“Not just geographically on the map, but asking ‘where can I gain access to those underlying themes?’

“Then, look up and pick some individual stocks or ETFs from there.”

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And looking at the new President’s actions within his first week – particularly concerning policies around renewable energy and building a ‘greener’ economy’ – one could be forgiven for thinking of the paradox of ‘an unstoppable force’ meeting ‘an immovable object.’

That is to say, Trump appears to present an immovable position of disdain towards environmentally friendly policies and clean energy transport – and a desire to emphasize fossil fuels instead.

However, he is faced with the unstoppable force of a global energy transition, underscored in particular by the growing popularity of electric vehicles (EVs).

And market-watchers might also ask, what could this mean for ASX-listed companies focused on critical minerals?

In his first week – starting January 20 – Trump signed a swathe of executive orders, including one promising to get rid of what he described as an ‘electric vehicle mandate’ imposed by the Biden administration.

This referred to an executive order signed by Joe Biden in 2021 which was pushing for half of all vehicles sold in the U.S. by 2030 to be EVs. While the latter was more about encouraging buyers rather than restricting their access to other cars, Trump has sought to frame the issue as a matter of promoting ‘true consumer choice.’

His own order, ‘Unleashing American Energy,’ also ends Federal funding for vehicle charging stations – subject to completion of a review process – and works to end a federal exemption relating to California which allows the state to phase out the sale of vehicles fuelled by petrol (gas) by 2035.

The first of these has already received pushback from Democrats pointing out Biden’s charger funding was part of a wider bipartisan infrastructure law, together with climate law the Inflation Reduction Act – noting any attempts to remove funds already allocated would be illegal.

To further underscore his antagonism to environmentalism, Trump has also considered a U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, with a definite order to new UN ambassador Elise Stefanik to take the country out of any commitment made in the framework of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Key to the electric vehicle story is the critical mineral of lithium, which has been locked in a volatile cycle, reaching a high point of 5750,000 Chinese yuan per tonne (CNY/t) in late 2022, before a dramatic fall of 86% over the last two years, as the market responded to the problem of oversupply, mainly from China.

The situation was still dicey coming into the new year; lithium prices had fallen 25% year-on-year throughout 2024.

China has also become the protagonist of an optimistic narrative for the metal as Beijing policymakers push for clean cars to make 20% of vehicles on Chinese roads by 2025.

Consumers there have been offered subsidies to buy EVs, and this was doubled in July 2024, with Chinese buyers flocking to purchase these vehicles: The latter trend was indicated by 31% growth in EV sales, year-on-year, for the first nine months of last year.

Additionally, recent data has shown the output of new energy vehicles within the country soared by 30.5% in December.

So will this demand and production mop up the lithium glut?

On one hand, the outlook for this critical metal appears to be improving – with experts tipping the global supply of lithium carbonate (LCE) to fall from 150,000 tonnes in 2024 to 80,000 in 2025.

Again, this is largely based on Chinese demand right now.

Closer to home, the commodity’s continuing low price has affected local producers and explorers, exemplified by IGO Ltd (ASX:IGO)‘s decision (taken together with joint venture partner Tianqi Lithium) to close operations at its lithium refinery in Kwinana.

While design issues at the plant were part of the story, IGO acknowledged a weak lithium price had also prompted anticipation of a net loss in the first half of the year.

This followed pullbacks from other players in the lithium space, such as NYSE-listed Albemarle: Which in August 2024 announced that expansion efforts at its Kemerton lithium hydroxide conversion site – also in Western Australia – would be rolled back, with the workforce to drop by 40%.

On the other hand, ASX-listed companies such as Chariot Corporation Ltd (ASX:CC9) – which is approaching lithium at the exploration stage, with a large tenement portfolio in Wyoming, Nevada, and Oregon – are holding tight to their assets and waiting out the price headwinds while the EV market and lithium demand rebuilds.

Saxo Head of Commodity Strategy Ole S. Hansen believes that although Trump’s new policies and approaches may stifle the United States’ drive towards electric vehicle ownership, the overall trend remains positive.

“Demand for critical metals towards the energy transformation, and specifically the EV industry, may see a slowdown in demand from the US,” he said.

“But ultimately, I do not believe it will have a material impact on the demand outlook as the energy transition will continue — also in the U.S. — as long the industry can compete with traditional producers.

“The 50% target (of Biden’s) I believe was never realistic and it’s not my belief that miners have based their demand outlook on that assumption.”

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The analysis was released on Monday night, hours after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese visited Queensland’s Gympie and Rockhampton as part of a pre-election tour.

Based on calculations from Australian Energy Market Operator figures, it claimed the Liberal-National coalition’s proposal to build and operate two nuclear reactors in the state would affect its economy by $872B, in addition to affecting Queensland’s output by $61.1B in 2050-51 alone.

Commenting on the latter factor, Mr Albanese said opposition leader Peter Dutton’s nuclear plans would take Australia backwards in terms of economic activity.

“Under the Coalition [Dutton’s] vision is for a smaller Australia, is for making less things, is for less economic activity, is for less jobs,” he said.

“A Soviet-style command economy of the energy system with his nuclear plan, because no one in the private sector would touch this with a barge pole because it doesn’t add up economically.”

According to Dutton’s nuclear strategy, seven reactors would be built across Australia, with two in Queensland, these being Tarong, north-west of Brisbane, and Callide, west of Gladstone.

The additional five would be Liddell and Mount Piper in New South Wales (in the Hunter Valley and near Lithgow respectively), Port Augusta in South Australia, Loy Yang in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley, and Muja in Western Australia (near the town of Collie). Per the plan, these would be operational between 2035 and 2037.

The proposal offers a series of challenges to Australia: A country that contains the world’s largest deposits of uranium, but only one nuclear reactor (Lucas Heights in Sydney, used solely for scientific and medicinal purposes).

Like many other Australian states, Queensland has a ban on uranium mining – this has been in place since 1989 – although exploration and development is ongoing at three main deposits.

These are Laramide Resources’ (ASX:LAM) Westmoreland – located in the far north, Paladin Energy’s (ASX:PDN) Valhalla – close to Mt Isa, and Ben Lomond – west of Townsville, which is being developed by Canadian company IsoEnergy. Mining previously occurred within the state, with production from the Mary Kathleen mine (also near Mt Isa) running from 1958 to 1982, when its resources depleted.

And Queensland’s political outlook on the issue is conflicted: On one hand, the state gov’t just recently elected in October under David Crisafulli has indicated it would push back against Peter Dutton’s nuclear plans.

At the same time, figures such as Robbie Katter – the Katter Australia Party member for Traeger (near Mary Kathleen township) – have said he would like to start a conversation about domestic supply.

After a lot of chatter about the coalition’s proposal to place uranium at the heart of its energy strategy, it called on consultancy firm Frontier Economics to produce a financial modelling report, which was duly released in December.

According to this, the capital and operating costs of the coalition plan (of 7 nuclear reactors across Australia and net zero emissions by 2050) would be $331B – or $263B less than Labor’s plan.

According to the coalition’s plan, Australia’s energy market (by 2050) would be comprised of 54% renewable energy and 38% nuclear energy, with the rest made up of storage solutions – gas and batteries. By contrast, Labor’s vision for energy by that time would be built around 94% renewables.

Another difference lies in the approach to coal from each political side: Labor anticipates the phasing out of coal-fired energy by 2034, while the coalition has acknowledged its plan would see coal being a feature of the market past that point, with nuclear reactors not going online until 2036.

But is the argument about lower costs correct? Labor has said no, pointing to statements from national science agency the CSIRO that nuclear energy would be significantly more expensive for Australia.

In December, the CSIRO said building a nuclear power plant would cost twice as much as renewable energy, and that power plants would provide few financial benefits despite having a relatively long shelf life.

Crucially, it argued, “Long development lead times mean nuclear won’t be able to make a significant contribution to achieving net zero emissions by 2050.”

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Adding to this is the chatter around our central bank, which has been under pressure to cut rates, but has largely resisted this, choosing instead to keep the cash rate steady at 4.35% – a position it’s held since November 2023.

Reflecting on how the Aussie economy has performed in 2024 – and how it might fare in the following year, given various headwinds including a second Trump administration in the U.S. and a continuing slowdown in China – ANZ senior economist Catherine Birch contributed several thoughts on the outlook.

Starting with the recent GDP numbers, Ms Birch said it showed the impact high inflation has been having on Australia.

“We did see the slowest annual GDP growth in Australia outside of the pandemic, since the 1990s recession, and that does show the economy is really feeling it at the moment,” Ms Birch explained.

“We have seen inflation really be a challenge for the economy. That has certainly caused some challenges for many industries and parts of the economy: construction is a big one in particular.

“We know a lot of construction firms have really struggled with the sharp rise we’ve seen in input costs. And some of the supply disruptions have really constrained how much can really be done, and therefore limiting growth as well.”

In response to high inflation, the RBA had taken a tough line on rate cuts – and had received pushback for this. But Ms Birch said it’s important to remember Australia had differed from other countries in terms of its initial experience with inflation, and how the RBA had chosen to respond to this.

“We saw inflation pick up later, we saw it peak later, but it’s also been slower to come down as well,” she said.

“And one of the differences, not only in the timing of rate changes versus other central banks, is that the RBA took our cash rate to 4.35% – well below a lot of comparable economies.

“For example, over in New Zealand, their OCR peaked at 5.5%, we saw over in the US, the rates peaked at 5.25-5.5% as well.

“So one of the reasons the RBA did that was that they were willing to tolerate a slower return of inflation back to target with the benefit being that unemployment wouldn’t rise as much if they took rates even higher to try and get inflation back to target sooner.”

Indeed, evidence of a consistently resilient labour market in Australia seems to have justified the Reserve Bank’s actions.

Looking into the new year, it was likely that – unexpected data notwithstanding – the RBA’s cautious policy would be likely to continue.

“We’re expecting that the RBA will start to cut rates in May and that there will be only two 25 basis point rate cuts in this cycle – so getting down to 3.85% by August next year, and then staying there,” Ms Birch said.

“A lot of people might not want to hear that sort of forecast. It will depend quite a bit on the data as to when the cuts start.

“If we see inflation and labour market data and household spending becoming weaker than expected over the next couple of months, it’s possible that they may start to cut rates in February.”

Turning to global headwinds in 2025, Ms Birch said the key word guiding predictions for both the Australian dollar and commodity prices was ‘volatility.’

The former would be likely to drop in the first half of the year, influenced by the anticipated impacts of Donald Trump’s promised tariff policy.

“We think that we’ll be seeing, by the middle of 2025, the Aussie dollar at around 63 US cents, but potentially there are periods where it gets lower, closer towards the 60 cents mark,” she said.

However, Ms Birch added several variables would enable Australia’s economy to survive these headwinds, with the dollar moving back towards 67 cents in the second half of 2025.

“We think Australia is still relatively well placed compared to a lot of other economies in terms of our growth outlook, and also our ability to deal with any shocks coming up as well, so that room we have on the fiscal policy side and monetary policy side,” she said.

Geopolitical and global economic volatility would likely also retain the strength of gold as a safe haven, she added, while other commodities would be shaped by trends coming out of Beijing.

“We think about something like lithium – the oversupply in batteries that we’re seeing in China will likely limit the near-term outlook at least, but the longer-term outlook still looks really positive,” Ms Birch said.

“And then of course there’s the China story as well: With that slowdown, that structural weakness that we’re seeing in the property sector only being partly offset by some of the stimulus measures and the move towards those new productive forces.

“So more investment in renewables and things like EVs and green infrastructure. Now, those sorts of things should boost things like aluminium and copper and some supply disruptions in those metals should also protect any price downside.”

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On Monday, Northern Star said it had entered a binding Scheme Implementation Deed (SID) with De Grey to facilitate its acquisition, with the total equity value of the latter being set at A$5 billion.

Under the arrangement, De Grey shareholders would get 0.119 new shares in Northern Star for each of their own, with this pricing De Grey shares at A$2.08 – a 37.1% premium to the company’s last closing price (of A$1.52 on November 29), as well as a 43.9% premium to De Grey’s 30-day volume-weighted average price of A$1.45.

Northern Star underlined – in its announcement – the fact this acquisition would propel it to a position of holding 74.9 million ounces of mineral resources, in addition to ore reserves of 26.9 million ounces, based on deposits across it three production centres in Western Australia (plus one in Alaska).

The Hemi project will provide a solid complement to Northern Star’s two focal assets in WA – its Yandal production centre in the Northern Goldfields region, and the Kalgoorlie production centre further south.

Hemi itself has provided headline news since 2019, when it was identified as a near-surface, high-grade gold discovery for De Grey: Fascinating not only due to its size – spread across 1,500 square kilometres – but also because the gold there is intrusion-hosted, a mineralisation type new to the Pilbara region, and with a scale of mineralisation previously unseen in the area.

The project is developing around six main zones – Aquila, Brolga, Crow, Diucon, Eagle and Falcon – with mineralisation across 2,000 metres north to south and 3,500 metres east to west, with depths of up to 500 metres, and remaining open in all directions.

Crucially, it hosts a mineral resource estimate of 11.2 million ounces, according to an update released in mid-November, which showed the numbers had jumped by 0.7 million ounces in just one year since the previously reported MRE.

These qualities have led many to claim Hemi is one of the world’s largest undeveloped gold projects, and it’s in a top-tier location.

Hemi’s attractions as an asset go beyond the mineralisation it holds, with an additional focus on what is predicted for its production future.

In September 2023, a definitive feasibility study (DFS) for the project outlined expectations for annual production of 530,000 ounces over Hemi’s first 10 years, with De Grey’s board signing off on development activities which would allow for open-pit mining to kick off from the Brolga starter pit, and first gold expected by the second half of 2026.

The financial parameters were also strong: According to the DFS, Hemi would provide a pre-tax free cash flow of $6.3 billion over the first 10 years, based on what a gold price of $1,295 per ounce would yield over that time period, with an average of 530,000 ounces to be produced over years one to 10.

This would put Hemi in any top five list of Australian gold mines, going beyond Northern Star’s Kalgoorlie Consolidated Gold Mines (KCGM), which in the 2024 fiscal year, produced 449,032 ounces – although the company is propelling it to an annual level of 900,000 ounces by 2029 according to a $1.5 billion expansion project launched in 2023.

The predictions also go beyond the numbers for AngloGold Ashanti’s Tropicana mine in the Yilgarn Craton – another top five Aussie gold mine – which in the 2023 calendar year produced 442,887 ounces.

With DeGrey signing off on the DFS, construction was expected to begin in mid-2024, and the company moved through the required activities quickly from the third quarter of 2023 and throughout 2024.

According to the company’s September quarterly report for the latter year, DeGrey issued tenders to contractors for EPCM (engineering, procurement and construction management) and EPC (engineering, procurement, and construction) bids for the Hemi process plant, and achieved a 30% milestone for Front-End Engineering Design (FEED).

The company also expended $169M in orders for long lead items and the mine’s permanent camp – this being within 0.5% of the DFS capital cost estimate for these items.

In terms of the project’s future following acquisition, Northern Star said it would bring crucial experience to Hemi – particularly the know-how honed from its KCGM expansion project, together with general de-risking through its proven development and operating expertise and strong balance sheet.

With Final Investment Decision (FID) yet to be finalised – subject to environmental approvals from the State and Federal governments – Northern Star has highlighted its plans to optimise Hemi’s development and mine plan, while retaining the majority of DeGrey’s management team, and intending to retain all other operational workers.

Of course, another reason why a high-grade, low-cost project is attractive to investors, and an asset worth acquiring is the performance of gold as a commodity, which stormed to an all-time high of $2790.07 in October, remaining impressive from then until now (today’s number is $2639.80).

Northern Star managing director and CEO Stuart Tonkin said the acquisition of DeGrey would be a boon to shareholders, and play a key role in enshrining the company’s place as a top 10 global gold major.

“De Grey’s Hemi development project will deliver a low-cost, long-life and large-scale goldmine in the Tier-1 jurisdiction of Western Australia, enhancing the quality of Northern Star’s asset portfolio to generate cash earnings,” he said.

“We remain committed to our profitable growth plan to 2-million-ounce per annum by FY26, with the KCGM Mill Expansion and addition of Hemi propelling a significant further increase in Northern Star’s production to ~2.5Mozpa by FY29.”

Northern Star has been trading at $16.08, while DeGrey shares are at $1.91.

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Altech’s main focus is the planning, design and construction of a 120-megawatt-hour (MWh) plant in Germany to produce the CERENERGY modular energy storage batteries – whose technology has been innovated by joint venture partner, Fraunhofer IKTs.

Crucial to this technology is the use of table salt, which facilitates construction of a battery without lithium, copper, cobalt, graphite or manganese elements; a battery which – unlike the regular lithium-ion type, can tolerate a wide range of temperatures, and last for 15 years.

On this basis, the company argues that SCSS batteries will be the grid battery storage of the future.

On October 1, Altech told investors that it had completed a first prototype of the CERENERGY battery, which had been installed in Fraunhofer IKTs’ test laboratory in Dresden, and was undergoing daily testing, with early results indicating its ability to maintain exceptional thermal stability – an important measure for evaluating high-capacity energy storage systems.

Also being assessed at the lab were CERENERGY’s efficiency, stability and overall performance under real-world conditions.

Since then, Altech’s main moves to develop the project have been around funding, starting with a share placement earlier this month which enabled it to raise $4 million by issuing 66,666,667 ordinary shares at 6 cents each.

Part of the funding was plugged into development of a longer-term financing strategy and bank due diligence for CERENERGY, with the first stage of this announced on November 22.

An important milestone was the development of an ‘invitation document’ which German subsidiary Altech Batteries GmbH (ABG) sent out to various financial institutions to check their interest in providing debt funding for the project, with several expressing enthusiasm.

Altech CEO and managing director Iggy Tan said he was pleased with the outcome.

“We recently appointed a debt advisor – one of the top accounting firms in Germany – which a lot of experience in funding these types of green projects and an extensive network of banking contacts,” he said.

“The process has been about onboarding these debt advisors and we have now completed an investment document which we call the ‘teaser’ and have also established a project data room for the due diligence process.

“The teaser has gone out to 10 investment banks in Europe, including two venture debt funds and the positive news is the feedback is very positive. These banks have come back and indicated they would be interested in the debt funding side of this project.”

Dept funding was only the first stage in a three-stage process, Mr Tan said, adding that after that came the grant component and finally equity funding.

“With regard to the grant component, there’s a lot of money in the EU as well as Germany looking to help projects like ours in the green transition,” he said.

“In the coming months, we’ll report the outcomes of these grants.”

Regarding equity funding, Altech planned to invite a strategic partner to join them in the project, and then sell them a minority interest.

This would provide two key advantages, according to Mr Tan.

“There will be an injection of funds to the project immediately, and we can use that to order long lead items for the project,” he said.

“And secondly, we’re looking for the strategic partner to add value to the whole process of establishing this first 120 MW plan as well as the future giga factories.”

Preferred partners for this would include large utility groups, data centre operators, investment funds and corporations that are heavily involved in the green energy transition.

With a definitive feasibility study (DFS) ticked off earlier in the year, and the success of the CERENERGY prototype also pointing to a positive future for the project, Altech has also made some prime moves when it comes to offtake arrangements.

“What we’re trying to do is get the first five years of our project sold so that it will help the funding process,” Mr Tan said.

“We announced recently (in September) the first offtake of 30 MW per annum to a company called ZISP (Zweckverband Industriepark Schwarze Pumpe). This is essentially the industrial park that we exist in, and they have EU funds to convert the power in that path to renewable energy from coal fired power.

“They have funds available and their project is to start converting the renewal power to renewable energy and as part of that they need grid storage batteries. So essentially they’ve signed up for 30 megawatts per annum for five years and we’re in the process of getting more offtake.”

Altech has been trading at 4.8 cents.

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Not only is Trump bullish on defence spending and expanding America’s military presence abroad – but Amaero also employs Trump’s former national security advisor Lt. H.R. McMaster.

That alone should be enough to raise eyebrows in a good way.

But Amaero happens to find itself at the juncture of several initiatives in the US – a need to reshore and scale industrial base capabilities; a ramp-up in defence spending, and, a Trump staple: reshoring skilled, high paying manufacturing jobs back in the States.

So what do they do?

This is one of those companies that works in a fairly invisible space you never really think about, but which is absolutely fundamental to the modern world. 

Newly located in Tennessee, part of America’s sprawling rust belt where many US manufacturing job reshoring initiatives are rolling out on the ground, after years of hard work, Amaero is now ready to commercialise and enter the market proper. 

The company, in a sentence, produces critical powders needed to make strategic 3D Printing – or additive manufacturing, if you will – possible. 

The company sells premium specialty metal powders that are the essential feedstock for 3D printing complex and high-value parts for the defence, space and aerospace industries. 

Put simply: if 3D Printing is a gold rush, Amaero is selling shovels. 

If you aren’t a 3D Printing enthusiast, it might be easy to miss how embedded the relatively fresh technology has become in the modern world. 

While there’s a lot of talk about AI being the biggest technological breakthrough of our time – really, we just somehow found a way to make search engines even less effective – it could be 3D Printing is the key driving force to advancing manufacturing and industrial production. 

The number of 3D Printing companies in the US jumped over 10% YoY in 2023, and one source states that in 2021, just over two million 3D Printers broadly were shipped around the world. That same source estimates the value of the US industry at US$14B. 

According to Amaero CEO Hank Holland, his company is the largest capacity producer of those critical powders in the US. 

Amaero only has one other competitor, as far as its assessment of the landscape informs. It’s an US$8B market cap company, but, the important consideration is that additive manufacturing material supply isn’t their core business.

Amaero, on the other hand, is a pureplay additive manufacturing feedstock supplier. And with McMaster on its Board, the company anticipates being able to make the right moves in Washington. 

The nature of America’s modern military industrial complex is a large part of this story – so too is the evolution of rocket engineering. 

As technology for rockets gets ever more complex (Amaero also caters to the maritime, space and aerospace industries) in an arms race that never truly ended, you need more and more complex machines to make ever more complicated parts. 

In fact, modern defence technology broadly has come to such a point that many of the parts and components needed for critical infrastructure from missiles to submarines can no longer be produced using legacy manufacturing equipment, as Amaero CEO Hank Holland told HotCopper.

“If you look at the tipping point of where we are for an adoption of additive manufacturing, a lot of these applications, the only way to make these parts is 3D printing,” Holland said.

“They’ve got internal cooling chambers and other geometries that it’s not possible to forge or cast these.”

Think hypersonic missiles, satellites, and submarine parts exposed to saltwater and pressure for months at a time. 

Enter additive manufacturing – or, to use pub language, 3D Printing with metal. 

Amaero’s flagship product is C103 Niobium powder. The Niobium alloy was first used in the Apollo lunar landing vehicle in 1969. 

For the US military to 3D Print components for hypersonic weapons or for missile defense systems; or for space primes to print rocket nozzles or thrusters, both parties require niobium alloys. This is due to its high-performance, heat-resistant properties.

And to make alloys, one needs C103 Niobium powder. 

“These are powders that are the input for additive manufacturing, or 3D printing, and they’re very important in high temperature applications, so think thermal protection or propulsion systems for hypersonic strategic missiles, but also space launch and satellites,” Holland explained. 

And as defence spending and manufacturing under Trump is set to expand, his Administration will be looking for domestic factories to make those assets using domestic labour. Print, baby, print. 

“Under the Trump administration there will be a very clear emphasis on strengthening the manufacturing base of this country, our manufacturing capabilities and a focus on bringing skilled, high paying jobs back to the US,” Holland said. 

The CEO also sees 2025 as being the year where Amaero’s vision really starts to come together. 

“I think it’s a turning point in the US.

“With the adoption of 3D printing but also the generational investment in these programs [for] weapons platforms such as hypersonics and strategic missiles,” demand is likely to be reliable. 

Holland sees a fortuitous calendar year just around the corner. 

With its Niobium C103 powder qualified by a leading Tier 1 additive manufacturer, with offtake and preferred supplier contract executed and more in the works, and with a high-ranking former Trump executive on its team ahead of the Trump Administration’s January ascension, the company expects both commercial revenues, and, possible US Government funding. 

Maybe the shovel-gold-rush analogy is tired. You could say that in an arms race, Amaero is selling sneakers. 

Disclaimer: The Market Online had a commercial relationship with Amaero at the time this article was created.

And offering a critical backdrop, there is the ongoing reality of geopolitical instability and tensions, as well as news flow from critical economies such as China, which have driven rallies but also demanded a closer inspection to predict where commodity prices may go in the future.

One of the most talked about of these commodities is of course, lithium, which hit an all-time high of 5750,000 Chinese yuan per tonne (CNY/t) in December 2022 before slumping and showing volatility ever since; it’s trading now at 72,500 CNY/t.

This year has been a particularly bad one for the critical metal, with it falling 24,000 CNY/t since the start of 2024, based on trading on a contract for difference (CFD) which follows lithium’s benchmark market.

Reflecting on these patterns, Saxo Bank’s Head of Commodity Strategy Ole Hansen said the lithium market appeared to have reached its lowest point, but a move up again could take time.

“The lithium market remains challenged by the overproduction capacity built up during and after the 2022 surge and subsequent collapse,” he said.

“With the current price starting to make some projects uneconomical, it’s our view that the race to the bottom has ended – however, for the price to recover, demand has to improve, and this may take longer to achieve given the slowdown in EV rollouts.”

Despite being highly watched and newsworthy, the market for electric vehicles (EVs) is definitely on a slow track, as evidenced by Ernst & Young’s fifth annual Global Mobility Index, which showed demand levelling off, with buyers expressing concern about the infrastructure for charging.

Released in September, the report included 19,000 respondents across 28 countries, and indicated that interest in purchasing an EV was still present – rising from 55% to 58% since the previous year – but still sluggish, with demand shifting from 30% to 55% between 2020 and 2023.

For most respondents (27%), their key issue was lack of charging infrastructure, while 25% said they were concerned about EV range, and 18% saying that the length of time taken to charge the vehicles was also on their minds.

A new question in the survey – on the cost of battery replacements – returned a 26% expression of concern about this issue.

But this reflects only one part of a wider story, which Mr Hansen said was a move by investors away from stocks connected to the green energy transition.

“I see very little enthusiasm for green transformation metals and the companies involved – reflected in the steep losses the related stocks have witnessed in the past 18 months,” he said.

“For that to change, the fundamental outlook needs to improve, followed by hedge funds abandoning long held and very profitable short positions across the green transformation and energy storage sectors.”

Mr Hansen also pointed to economic news coming out of China as an underpinning factor in the performance of lithium and other metals.

“China has yet to address their overriding problem, which is low consumer confidence, and an oversupply of housing funded by underfunded banks and local governments,” he said.

“With that in mind, a recovery will be bumpy, but overall, the electrification of China is ongoing at a rapid pace and that will continue to underpin demand for copper and lithium while other products like steel and iron ore may struggle.”

The red metal has – in contrast to lithium – experienced a very good year indeed, reaching an all-time high of US$5.20 per pound (lb) in May, with an overall rise of 0.45 USD/lb or 11.60% since the start of 2024. (Currently trading at US$4.33/lb.)

“Copper continues to receive a great deal of focus from investors looking for higher prices amid strong and rising demand driven by the green transformation,” Mr Hansen said.

“However, the rallies seen this year have been unsupported by fundamentals, as China’s housing sector has struggled and inventories monitored by the major futures exchanges have stayed elevated.”

He added investors might be cautiously looking at conditional factors in the short term but maintained that copper would be on solid ground in the long-term.

“We maintain a bullish outlook for copper but for now, the upside is limited due to an overhang of supply and worries about the economic outlook,” Mr Hansen said.

“The electrification of the world is real and, in the coming year, the combination of robust demand towards grid upgrades and electrical appliances will likely be met with tight supply from miners struggling to increase production.”

An even stronger performer this year has been of course, gold – which reached an all-time high of US$2,790 per Troy ounce on Wednesday (October 30), with an overall rise of US$721.72/t oz, or 34.99% since the start of 2024.

Given the proximity of this recent leap to the U.S. election next Tuesday, one could be forgiven for thinking this was the key factor to keep in mind. Mr Hansen said it was certainly relevant, but added that a long list of other political and economic concerns were also keeping this commodity strong.

“I see limited signs of exhaustion in the gold market,” he said.

“The metal has rallied by more than 30% this year as investors around the world seek protection against multiple uncertainties, all pointing to an unsettled world.

“The main drivers of this bullish phase include concerns over fiscal instability, safe-haven demand, geopolitical tensions, de-dollarisation driving strong demand from central banks, Chinese investors turning to gold amid record low savings rates and property market fears, and increased uncertainty surrounding the US presidential election.

“Additionally, rate cuts – by the US Fed and other central banks – are reducing the cost of holding non-interest-bearing assets like gold and silver. This environment is already spurring renewed interest in gold-backed ETFs, particularly from Western asset managers who have been net sellers since May 2024.”

When it comes to the link between the Trump-Harris race and trends in the gold price, Mr Hansen outlined a theory of how fears about a Republican-dominated political scene were pushing investors towards the safe haven of this metal.

“Given how the geopolitical risk premium has deflated in crude oil (which slumped the most in two years on Monday), we conclude that the latest strength in gold is increasingly being seen as a hedge against a potential ‘Red Sweep’ in the US election, where one political party (in this case, the Republicans) controls both the White House and Congress,” he said.

“This scenario raises concerns about excessive government spending, pushing the debt-to-GDP ratio higher, while fuelling inflation fears through tariffs on imports and geopolitical risks.

“Investors are turning to precious metals as protection, even as expectations for lower rates and easier financial conditions fade, as the FOMC may end up being forced to pause the current rate-cutting phase.”

At this stage, the race is still very tight, with a CNN report on Wednesday indicating Harris maintains a tiny edge over Trump in two of three key states and is tied with him on the third.

Michigan voters appear to favour Kamala Harris by 48% compared to Trump’s 43%, while in Wisconsin the difference is 51% in her favour, against 45% for Trump. In Pennsylvania, voters have shown 48% support for each candidate.

Upon news of the result next week, Hansen added, the situation for gold might change.

“Nothing ever goes in a straight line and, having rallied as much as it has, gold can still run into a deep correction after November 5 if a ‘sweep’ scenario does not ensue,” he said.

“But as long as the above-mentioned reasons for holding gold do not go away, the prospect for even higher prices remains.”

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This figure – published this week as part of Foodbank’s 2024 Hunger Report – accounts for 3.4 million households and means in the worst cases some family members go entire days without eating because they have simply run out of food.

At a minimal level, the report shows all households accounted for have reduced the quality, variety, or desirability of their food.

This week’s data is a slight improvement from 2023, when the issue affected 3.7 million households, but some sectors of the Australian community continue to show historically high levels of poverty.

The inflation numbers underpinning this reality tells an interesting story. Australia’s monthly consumer price index (CPI) peaked at 8.4% in December 2022 but has been softening, albeit not sitting comfortably within the Reserve Bank of Australia’s 2-3% target band until August, when the reading came in at 2.7%.

Side by side, the central bank has ignored calls to cut the cash rate, keeping it steady at 4.35% since November 2023.

Founder and chief executive officer of Australian Investment Education Andrew Baxter said that while supply chain issues following COVID-19 had provided an initial impetus for prices to rise, government spending was the major underlying reason why they had remained stubbornly high.

“The reason why we’ve seen inflation as sticky as it is, is largely down to government policy and additionL money flowing into the economy via subsidies and various spending initiatives,” Mr Baxter explained.

He pointed to Australian job figures, which revealed most employment growth was in public sector positions, as evidence of where the economy was running on high government spending, rather than broad based economic growth.

“According to the latest employment data, we’ve had 820,000 jobs added under the current government, of which around 75% of those jobs are seemingly in the public sector,” he said.

“So, there isn’t a productivity increase growing the economy – there are jobs happening, but they’re on the cost side/tax payer funded of the ledger, rather than being part of an expanding economic growth cycle.”

In the context of this spending, the RBA – under Governor Michele Bullock, who was appointed in September 2023 – has had a difficult tightrope to tread between calls to cut the cash rate and the need to keep the economy on an even keel.

Mr Baxter said part of what was making Australians feel hard-done by, was a suggestion made by previous Reserve Bank chief Philip Lowe in 2021 that the cash rate would not rise until 2024.

In fact, it rose by 25 basis points (from 0.10%) in May 2022, kicking off an upward trajectory that only ended at the tail end of 2023 – with the rate on-hold at 4.35% since November of that year.

“Effectively, I think Lowe’s statement gave the green light for people to borrow with a degree of comfort, knowing that rates won’t’ change, at least according to the RBA Governor” he said.

“So you have a market or audience or country that was told, don’t worry about interest rates, keep borrowing and spending.

“And then the RBA went whoops, we’ve got to try and put the genie back in the bottle.”

Michele Bullock, he added, had been a far more astute communicator.

“She has made it very clear that the RBA is an independent body: it doesn’t have a political bias, it has a task to ensure that the economy is operating at a certain level with inflation in certain bands,” Mr Baxter said.

“The challenge is – I suspect – that on the other side, you have a government which is spending money like a drunken sailor.

“And so you have significant political pressure for the RBA to cut interest rates.  It’s even been touted that the current government have been looking to change the way interest rate decisions are made.

“Added to which, further pressure for rates to be cut is at odds with Government policy that continues to indulge in significant spending.”

Until that circle was squared, it would be difficult for the Reserve Bank to start reducing rates, he added.

So how should Australian consumers navigate the high-cost environment?

Mr Baxter said it was ‘absolutely pivotal’ for people to develop a budget, and to check where their money was being spent.

“We all have an idea of where our cash goes, but if you actually sit down and document it, there’s a fair bit going out the door that people don’t even realise,” he said.

One example of how easily money could dissipate was the ‘aspirational spending’ associated with mobile phones, wherein people often felt the need to spend big on the latest gadgets, he added.

It was important to remember though, checking spending in this manner was not a punishment, but an opportunity.

“All budgeting allows you to do is guarantee that what you want in the future, eventually becomes a reality by making some short-term sacrifices now,” Mr Baxter said.

After assessing the state of their spending, consumers should begin to remove unnecessary costs.

“A good example of that is subscriptions,” Mr Baxter said.

“It’s so easy to have a gym subscription you haven’t been to for six months, or Netflix which you haven’t watched because it’s summer and you want to head down the beach.

“Whatever it is, have a look and start to eliminate those sort of expenses that you don’t use and that aren’t giving you the sort of utility you need.”

In terms of saving money, Baxter said “Eating at home is a huge thing.”

“Eating out should become a treat rather than ‘I can’t be bothered to cook tonight so I’ll get Deliveroo or Uber Eats’,” he added.

“The other benefit of doing that is if you’re eating at home and you’ve cooked, you’ve potentially got leftovers to take to work tomorrow.

“The issue has become more marked as we’ve seen an end to work from home, because if you’re going back to the office, you find there’s a subway, or a sushi place around the corner that’s tempting you to go and shell out your $15 or $20 for lunch, whereas you could have taken last night’s leftovers, which you would most likely have had, when you were working from home.”

One way Australians could maintain healthy finances was to avoid bad debts, Mr Baxter said.

“People can often fall foul of ‘buy now pay later’ or credit cards, where they’re paying minimum balance and getting clobbered with 16 to 17% interest,” he said.

“It’s really important to focus on reducing that, and to understand how that debt’s come about, particularly with the ‘buy now, pay later’ stuff.

“Additionally, if you’ve got credit card debt and you’re working at chipping away at it, looking at consolidating all that debt and maybe taking out a personal loan which might be 9 to 10% interest per year is going to save you money straightaway.  The key thing if you do this, is to not then start racking more debt up on your credit card.”

A final piece of advice for navigating stormy economic waters was to make sure if you have extra cash, you invest it wisely.

“Consider cash at the bank,” Mr Baxter said.

“If you’re earning 5 to 6% on a term deposit might sound good, but if inflation is really running at 4.5 or 5%, your real return on that is not much.”

“You’ve got to look at assets to invest in if you’ve got surplus cash, which have the ability to grow significantly above that inflation level so you’re getting a real return on your money.”

He added taking this step did not require any particular expertise in the investment space.

“You can put your money into an Exchange Traded Fund. We do it all the time for our clients: and you’ve got something that’s giving you the ability to have some decent upside,” he said.

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Last week, BM8 announced it had raised A$1 million to progress exploration at its Bleiberg zinc-germanium project in Austria, with this coming shortly after the company announced fieldwork at the site to happen later in October, chasing up 6 kilometres worth of drill targets, and guided by more than 100 years of historical data.

The latter gives investors some insight into the value of the Bleiberg asset: comprising 116 claims stretched across 65.8 square kilometres, the landholding includes the historic Bleiberg zinc-lead-germanium mine, which was ranked the world’s sixth largest producer of the latter metal before its closure in 1993.

The whole Bleiberg region is recognised as a historic lead and zinc district, with mining activity starting there in the 14th century. But germanium is also found there in world-beating grades, in addition to gallium recorded at between 90 and 110 grams per tonne.

The maiden fieldwork program at Bleiberg will see BM8 chief executive officer Nigel Broomham join chief geological advisor Dr Simon Dorling to undertake reconnaissance geological traverses to support mapping efforts at the project, as well as collecting surface samples, conducting assessment of scale, and establishing drilling targets.

Mr Broomham – who spent six years in senior geologist and superintendent roles at Pilbara Minerals Ltd (ASX:PLS) leading the team from Exploration through to Production – joined BM8 before its re-listing to the ASX last year, and said the decision had been guided by both its assets and team.

“It’s pretty similar to my investment strategy as well, (BM8) has a capable board, very strong register, and some really exciting projects which I felt had a huge amount of potential,” he said.

“That’s our lead-zinc-germanium project in Bleiberg Austria – where we have the best exposure to the strategic metals of germanium and gallium on the ASX – and also our lithium asset in Ontario Canada, Falcon Lake.

“It became apparent to me that after 6 years at Pilbara Minerals, playing a part in the success story there at Pilgangoora, that I wanted to get out and find the next one, and I saw Battery Age as the perfect opportunity.”

BM8’s Falcon Lake lithium project in Canada has been progressing side-by-side with Bleiberg throughout 2024, pulling up impressive results from a summer exploration program which kicked off in July.

This included intercepts of 28.25 metres at 1.30% Li2O (lithium oxide) and 18.40 metres at 1.88% Li2O – both reported in September based on a seven-hole program of drilling, in with significant mineralisation found in six of these.

With a prospective corridor of 5 kilometres in focus, this drilling was able to expand the mineralised zone – particularly at the Falcon Little Lake target, where a 40 metre thick pegmatite was intersected.

This boosted expectations and built on previous exploration carried out in 2023 at the project – which is located in a strong mining jurisdiction in Ontario.

Mr Broomham said being able to play a role in emerging critical minerals stories here and in Europe was a great position to be in.

“For me, sitting in Western Australia and being part of the lithium industry here for a quite a time, watching the emerging North American supply chain with a lot of excitement, and I really feel that’s the next frontier,” he said.

“With that comes our ventures in Europe as well, where we have strategic metals germanium and gallium as well as zinc – these are all future-facing commodities.

“We feel there’s a real need for these metals outside of the China controlled supply chain, and we believe we’re well placed to capitalize on them as they emerge.”

Nevertheless, he acknowledged that companies in the lithium sector in particular had been doing it tough, given the historically significant weakness in that commodity’s price seen recently, as when it steadied at a three year low of 71,500 Chinese yuan per tonne in September.

Mr Broomham was optimistic that the price had reached its lowest point, and that the cycle would turn around soon.

“It’s been difficult, much like many of our peers, to attract new investment in the sector,” he said.

“But what we’ve seen and what we believe is that we are at the bottom, or close to the bottom, especially when considering lithium and other battery metals globally.

“What we believe that’s done is essentially suppress capital flowing to the next producer, the next developer and the next discovery.”

He added that this suppression would lead to a lack of projects, in turn causing a higher price environment which could be capitalised on when the market turned.

Indeed, given reports in September that the world’s biggest battery producer Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd (CATL) had closed down its lithium mine in China’s Jiangxi province have suggested that the oversupply narrative may be coming to an end.

“Nobody likes to be at the bottom of commodity cycles. However, to me this is 2019 all over again – we’ve seen a huge amount of supply come off line,” Mr Broomham said.

“And essentially the current pricing is below incentive pricing which means that these projects will not be coming on line as originally predicted, therefore supply won’t keep up with forecast, and ultimately that will result in high prices for longer.

“Demand is not going anywhere, despite the murmurings up and down St George’s Terrace.”

Crucial to this would be continuing consumer drive for electric vehicles, he added.

“What we know globally is that EV sales continue to grow in the largest markets in the world,” Mr Broomham said.

“Actually now it’s more affordable to buy an EV in the US than it is on a like for like basis as an internal combustion engine.

“So people are going to be voting with not only their heads but with their wallets now.”

BM8 has been trading at 11 cents.

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This is based on construction of a refinery designed to produce 18,270 tonnes per year of green lithium carbonate, which will become feed for LFP batteries.

The plant itself will have a small, off-the-shelf design, and will springboard from the technology, know-how and partnerships developed at Galaxy Resources’ Jiangsu lithium refinery in China – a project which involved many current employees at Lithium Universe, dubbed their ‘Lithium Dream Team’.

Among these is LU7’s head of lithium carbonate refinery John Loxton, who was previously project manager with consultancy Hatch – which provided full EPCM services, commissioning support, advice and other engineering services for Jiangsu.

Mr Loxton was one of several members of the ‘Dream Team’ who features in a recent series of videos produced by Lithium Universe to provide investors with an insight on how the Bécancour project is moving forward.

Mr Loxton said that knowledge accrued through this process had been essential to guiding plans for Bécancour.

“We’re taking the lessons we learned and the knowledge we have from the Jiangsu plant, and applying it to a Canadian location,” he said.

“So in undertaking a project such as Becancour, there are two critical things.

“First, use of proven technology, and second: embed a team with operational and development experience into the design, so that you can be certain that the plant will start up and operate as required.”

He said that the Canadian refinery would only be changed from the design in China when absolutely necessary, since introducing changes also introduced risk.

In terms of the key refinery processes, they would remain the same, he assured investors.

“We are not changing any of the process: the process is contained within a temperature-controlled building, so there is no change because of winter,” Mr Loxton said.

However, there would be some variation in terms of layout, especially when it came to the distance between different processes.

“We had the benefit of having a clean site, so we took the unit processes and laid them out end to end, minimising the distances between them in a logical sequence,” he said.

“This also allowed us to lay them out so that we could get an efficient building that would envelope the entire process plant, which was required to deal with the winterisation in Canada.”

Lithium Universe’s non-executive director Dr Jingyuan Liu – who with Galaxy Resources oversaw engineering and construction of the Jiangsu plant – said in another video that the use of lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) as battery cathode material was becoming more popular than the previously dominant nickel-manganese-cobalt (AMC) batteries.

The former uses lithium carbonate, so this was the product which LU7 chose to produce from its Canadian refinery, as opposed to lithium hydroxide – which is the central feed stock for AMC batteries.

“In the last few years the lithium conversion industry in China and outside China has been focused on lithium hydroxide production,” he said.

“However, recently, LFP batteries’ capacity has increased a lot by optimisation of the battery geometries.

“Most of the Chinese lithium hydroxide plants switched to lithium carbonate production. In 2024, LFP batteries are expected to gain 87% of energy storage.”

Dr Liu said the process of creating both was quite similar at the front end.

“The only difference is in production. The lithium carbonate uses sodium carbonate, the lithium hydroxide uses sodium hydroxide as a reagent,” he said.

He added that the production of lithium hydroxide was also riskier, with high alkaline levels meaning that workers had to wear heavy masks.

“We believe that LFP batteries will be adopted gradually….and that demand for lithium carbonate will grow faster than that of lithium hydroxide,” Dr Liu said.

The PFS videos can be viewed here.

At 14:01 AEDT, Lithium Universe was trading at 1.4 cents – a rise of 16.67% since the market opened.

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With the PFS already showing that financial dimensions of the refinery project are looking good – with the PFS indicating a pre-tax net present value (NPV) of US$779 milllion, with an internal rate of return (IRR) of 23.5% and payback of 3.5 years – CFO John Sobolewski explained how LU7 had come to these figures.

He said that his previous experience as CFO in charge of Galaxy Resources’ Jiangsu lithium refinery in China had given him plenty of scope to assess how a similar project could be undertaken in Canada.

This was aided by the fact that plant designer Hatch was a key actor in construction of both projects.

“We’ve worked with Hatch throughout this process and we’ve worked with the same supplier and procurement strategy. We’ve done this to replicate the success we had at Jiangsu,” he said.

“By doing this, we’re utilising proven designs, reducing engineering work – in many cases, we’re able to get quotes from the actual suppliers as opposed to the budgeting exercise.

“So it gives us some confidence that the numbers we’re using – particularly for the Capex and Opex – are real numbers.”

Managing director Alex Hanly featured in two videos in the series – one introducing the PFS, and one helping investors to understand how LU7 had approached the question of lithium pricing as a factor in the project.

This is particularly important given the questionable fortunes of lithium, which is now trading at 75,500 Chinese yuan per tonne (CNY/t), after dipping to 72,500 CNY/t in September (its lowest point in over three years).

He said that to get a comprehensive overview, LU7 consulted multiple sources to understand how pricing was situated for both the feedstock of spodumene (SC6) and the resulting material produced by the plant, lithium carbonate.

“What we’ve done is use ten different sources – eight of which were from technical studies up to feasibility study – to get an understanding of the average, both across SC6 and lithium carbonate,” he said.

From this information, the company then had to develop a ‘pricing ratio’.

“The pricing ratio itself is – put very simply – the price at which we buy spodumene into the merchant refinery and the price at which we sell the lithium carbonate to the offtaker,” Mr Hanly said.

“And what we found through our different evaluations of these different projects was that some of these projects took an overly optimistic view, some 22 times the spodumene price, and some upwards of 26 times.

“Now, this is obviously a pricing ratio which would never exist in the real environment.

“So what we’ve done – in doing our analysis – is take a ratio which we believe is quite conservative, a ratio of under 18 times, which is considered to be the median across the long-term average.”

From this, LU7 was able to identify a ‘goldilocks zone’, which was “a range of this pricing ratio between inputs and outputs at which the merchant refinery can be exceptionally viable,” according to Mr Hanly.

LU7 has been trading at 1.5 cents.