Chile is studying alternatives and scenarios in the event the US imposes tariffs on its copper and agricultural goods, President Gabriel Boric said today.
"Even though Chile is not directly threatened yet, we need to take all necessary precautions," the leftist president said.
The finance and foreign affairs ministries set up a joint committee to evaluate possible US tariffs on Chilean copper after US president Donald Trump ordered a Section 232 investigation into the effect of copper imports on national security.
Boric has instructed the agriculture minister to set up a similar committee to look at potential impacts on Chile's fruit exports to the US after Trump's recent pledge to impose tariffs on overseas agricultural goods.
"We have the duty to anticipate [outcomes] because we have seen how inopportune decisions can be in this [US presidential] term," he said.
Boric said he had spoken with Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum, Panamanian president Jose Raul Mulino and French president Emmanuel Macron about the need for multilateral relations rather than unilateral decisions where the "law of the strongest" rules.
The US produced 1.1mn t and imported 810,000 t of copper in 2024, according to the US Geological Survey. Chile supplied 65pc of imported refined copper.
Chile is the world's largest copper miner, producing 5.25mn t in 2024, almost a quarter of global supply.
