The Trump Trade: How Silver and Copper Became America’s New Gold Rush

Publisher’s Preface: Before we jump into today’s Wealth Daily, I want to alert you to my recently released White Paper #4.

What you’re about to read is not another market forecast, nor a recycled “gold bug” rant about the Fed, inflation, or the dollar’s demise.

This is the document that changes everything.

White Paper #4 — Welcome to MoneyQuake 2026 — marks the precise moment when the decades-long tremors beneath our financial system become a full-blown seismic event. This is where gold, digital assets, AI, energy, and geopolitics collide to rewrite the very definition of wealth.

In it, I reveal the single most shocking gold price prediction I’ve ever made. It’s bold, data-backed, and rooted in the same kind of contrarian foresight that led me to call Peak Oil in 2005 and Peak Gold a decade later. Those who acted on those calls built generational wealth. Those who ignored them watched history pass them by.

But this time, the stakes are even higher.

MoneyQuake isn’t a theory — it’s the new economic reality. Central banks are rewriting the rules of reserve currency. The BRICS bloc is quietly dismantling the petrodollar. AI-driven infrastructure and critical minerals are fueling a commodity supercycle unseen in modern history. And a silent revolution in digital gold — led by projects like NatGold — is forging the next monetary system in real time.

This is why Welcome to MoneyQuake is a must-read. 

You can get your free copy here.

It’s not a sales pitch — it’s a survival guide for what’s already underway. It shows you how to position yourself before the rest of the herd realizes what’s happening.

If you only read one Wealth Daily white paper this decade, make it this one. (Well, wait. I do have more to give you.)

Forward it to your friends, your family, your business partners — because when this prediction plays out, you’ll want them to know you were the one who saw it coming first.

And stay tuned… because White Paper #5 is already in motion.

It’s called MoneyQuake 2026 and Beyond — The Age of the Conjoined Twins. It reveals why this quake isn’t just here to stay — it’s accelerating — and how the next wave of opportunity will come from the perfect fusion of AI infrastructure and hard-asset scarcity.

This is the future of investing.

And you’re reading it first.

Chapter 1: The Awakening of the Sleeping Giant

It’s early morning in Arizona. The sun crawls up over the red-striped ridges of the Santa Rita Mountains, igniting rock seams laced with copper and silver — the same veins that built the railroads, wired the first cities, and lit Thomas Edison’s bulbs.

For half a century, those hills have slept — not because the metals ran out but because America forgot how to dig.

Then a single bureaucratic act jolts the nation awake.

The U.S. Department of the Interior just added silver and copper to the official Critical Minerals List — an unassuming update with explosive implications.

The final 2025 list also includes metallurgical coal, boron, lead, rhenium, silicon, and uranium.

That’s the policy equivalent of shouting, “Gold!” from a mountaintop.

Because when a government declares something critical, it’s saying: We need this to survive — and we’ll do whatever it takes to secure it.

And just like that, the era of polite green-energy talk gives way to the next great American resource rush — the Trump Trade, a full-throttle revival of domestic mining and re-industrialization.

Chapter 2: The Ground Beneath Our Feet

Let’s clear something up. America doesn’t have a resource shortage — it has a regulatory one.

Underneath our deserts and mountains lie trillions of dollars in untapped metal wealth:

• Over 100 million metric tons of copper resources, mostly sitting idle in Arizona, Utah, and Alaska.
• An estimated tens of thousands of metric tons of silver buried in U.S. deposits that have never been fully explored.
• Massive multi-metal systems like Pebble, Resolution, and Back Forty that remain stalled or underdeveloped.

For decades, policy paralysis kept them locked underground.

Now? That lock is broken.

Trump’s re-industrial agenda is turning those dormant deposits into strategic assets — and the timing couldn’t be more electric. Because what’s coming next — the global AI explosion — is not just a software story. It’s a metals story in disguise.

Chapter 3: AI — The Great Material Mirage

Say the word “AI” and most people picture servers, code, and algorithms swirling in a digital cloud.

But peel back the abstraction, and you find a mountain of matter.

Every “smart” system — from ChatGPT to Tesla’s Dojo, from Amazon’s cloud farms to the Pentagon’s autonomous drones — is built on metals.

Each Nvidia chip contains traces of gold and silver.

Each AI server rack is a fortress of copper wires, silver conductors, and rare-earth magnets.

Each hyperscale data center eats up 5,000 tons of steel, 30,000 cubic yards of concrete, and miles of copper cabling.

AI, in truth, is not some floating idea. It’s a physical industry disguised as a digital revolution.

The smarter we get, the more metal we need.

That’s the paradox no one talks about — but Trump’s team gets it. His expansion of the critical minerals list wasn’t just about mining; it was about fueling the AI economy with American earth.

Chapter 4: The Trump Trade — Policy Becomes Profit

Trump’s 2025 executive order did what no other administration dared:

It called mining what it is — national security.

The new Critical Minerals List doesn’t just name metals; it picks winners.

By adding silver and copper, the government is throwing open the gates to:

• FAST-41 permitting, cutting years off approval timelines.
• Federal funding and loan guarantees for domestic miners.
• Defense Production Act prioritization for strategic materials.

This is what insiders now call the Trump Trade — a confluence of policy, patriotism, and profit.

I call it the 3 P’s trading strategy.

For investors, it means U.S. mining equities are being repriced from cyclical commodities to structural assets. The same way oil stocks surged after WWII, silver and copper miners are about to be treated like the arteries of the new economy.

Chapter 5: Silver — Gold’s Little Brother Grows Up

Silver’s been mocked for years as gold’s moody sibling. But that’s changing fast.

Silver isn’t just money anymore — it’s technology.

Every solar panel, every EV battery, every data processor relies on it.

A single solar farm can use over 5 million ounces of silver. The AI sector alone could add another 10% to global demand within two years.

Meanwhile, supply? Stagnant. Global production has fallen three straight years.

That’s why this “critical” label is monumental. It redefines silver from a luxury metal into a strategic one — essential for both defense and data.

The gold-to-silver ratio — currently above 80 — has nowhere to go but down. If it normalizes to 50, we’re looking at $80 silver before the cycle peaks.

And that’s at current levels of $4,100/oz gold. 

We’ve been recommending junior silver stocks like Apollo Silver (OTC: APGOF; TSX-V: APGO) for well over a year.

Our silver thesis has paid off as Apollo Silver has ripped to record highs. Apollo Silver has rallied nearly 300% in 2025 alone!!!

That’s not a guess. That’s math plus momentum — and now, government policy.

Chapter 6: Copper — The Red Metal Reborn

If silver is the spark, copper is the wire.

Copper has always been civilization’s bloodstream — from telegraph wires to Tesla coils. But the AI revolution will consume it at rates no model predicts.

Each EV requires 80 kilograms of copper. Each wind turbine, 8 tons. Each AI data center, up to 100 miles of copper cabling.

Now scale that across 500 new U.S. data centers planned by 2030 — and you start to see the enormity of the coming copper crunch.

The U.S. already imports nearly half its refined copper. Yet we sit atop some of the richest ore bodies on Earth.

Projects like Resolution Copper could singlehandedly supply 25% of U.S. demand for decades. But until now, permitting gridlock kept them frozen.

Trump’s critical-minerals order just changed that.

For copper miners like Freeport-McMoRan (NYSE: FCX), Lundin Mining (OTC: LUNMF) and junior explorers across Arizona and Nevada, this is a policy tailwind of hurricane force.

Chapter 7: The AI-Mining Feedback Loop

The deeper irony is this: AI doesn’t just consume metals — it helps find them.

Machine-learning algorithms are already scanning geological data to identify new copper and silver deposits with uncanny accuracy.

So the very industry that depends on metals is now helping to discover more of them — an ouroboros of innovation and extraction.

That’s why you’ll start seeing partnerships between tech giants and miners — Microsoft funding copper exploration, Google modeling geological patterns, Nvidia optimizing mine automation…

This is no longer the dusty industry of pickaxes and drills. It’s the fusion of AI and earth — code meets core sample.

Chapter 8: America’s Unmined Empire

Let’s talk reserves — the real hidden empire.

The U.S. holds roughly 200 million tons of identified copper resources and tens of billions of ounces of silver equivalents across undeveloped districts.

If those resources were priced at today’s market rates, you’re looking at over $3.5 trillion in in-ground wealth — almost equal to the GDP of Germany.

And yet, for decades, it sat untapped.

Trump’s mining revival changes that. Projects once written off as politically impossible — Pebble in Alaska, Twin Metals in Minnesota, Back Forty in Michigan — are back on the map.

This isn’t a “boom” in the old sense. It’s a resurgence of sovereignty.

Chapter 9: The Industrial Resurrection

Step back for a moment and look at the bigger picture.

Steel mills are roaring back to life. LNG export terminals are expanding. Nuclear is reborn. The grid is being rewired.

And running through it all — unseen but essential — is metal.

Copper, silver, nickel, lithium, rare earths. The same materials America once exported are now its most urgent imports.

The Trump Trade is turning that dependency inside out.

When Trump says, “We’re bringing it home,” he doesn’t just mean factories and jobs. He means resources.

That’s why this critical-minerals update is a cornerstone of the MoneyQuake thesis. It’s the moment the abstract (AI, automation, clean energy) collides with the physical (ore, rock, metal).

That collision is where fortunes are made.

Chapter 10: The Repricing of Reality

Here’s what Wall Street hasn’t priced in yet…

Every trillion dollars invested in AI infrastructure will require about 3 million additional tons of copper and 100 million ounces of silver.

And since those metals are now “critical,” they’re no longer subject to normal commodity cycles. They’re being elevated to national assets — like oil after WWII or silicon after the Space Race.

That means:

• Policy-backed demand floors.
• Supply-driven scarcity premiums.
• A multi-decade supercycle baked into the industrial blueprint.

Mining stocks that once traded at 5X cash flow will re-rate to 10X or higher. Juniors sitting on quality U.S. assets will be repriced overnight.

This isn’t a trade — it’s a transformation.

Chapter 11: The Real AI Play

Here’s the headline that will hit a year from now:

"AI Boom Sparks U.S. Mining Renaissance."

Because while everyone’s chasing tech tickers, the smart money is going underground — literally.

AI doesn’t run on thoughts. It runs on tons.

Every digital miracle has a physical footprint: silver for conductivity, copper for power, graphite for cooling, steel for structure, cement for scale.

That’s the sleight of hand of the modern economy — it sells you clouds, but it’s built on rocks.

Trump just handed you the playbook to profit from that disconnect.

Chapter 12: The New Rush

Close your eyes and listen: the clang of drills in Nevada, the hum of haul trucks in Arizona, the buzz of new life in the old boomtowns…

It’s happening again.

The 21st-century gold rush isn’t about gold at all. It’s about silver and copper — the twin metals now elevated to national treasures.

This is America’s second mining age, born not from desperation but design.

And the spark that lit it wasn’t a prospector’s pick — it was a presidential pen.

Final Word: The MoneyQuake Grows Louder

Silver and copper’s elevation to critical-mineral status isn’t a policy footnote — it’s a foundational shift.

It’s the physical confirmation of the MoneyQuake thesis: AI, electrification, and reindustrialization are not virtual trends — they are material revolutions.

Trump has reopened America’s mines. The AI build-out is only in inning one. And the supply squeeze on metals is already visible on the horizon.

If you want to know where the real AI profits lie, don’t look at the cloud.

Look underground.

Because in the end, the future isn’t built on code.

It’s built on copper and silver.

Get to the good, green grass first…

The Prophet of Profit,