Miner Teck plans to sell to Asia to avoid US tariffs

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By Divya Rajagopal

TORONTO (Reuters) – Canadian miner Teck has been developing plans to sell zinc to Asia instead of the U.S. to circumvent tariffs from President Donald Trump’s administration on Canadian imports, CEO Jonathan Price on Tuesday.

Teck, which sells most of its refined zinc to the U.S., has been working on a contingency plan for months, Price told the PDAC mining industry conference in Toronto. “We have been reserving warehousing capacity, looking to reserve space in ports to export the metals to Asia,” Price said

“We will find buyers and prices will adjust.”

The additional warehousing and port spaces would be in Canada, a company representative said.

Trump’s 25% tariffs on imports from Canada as well as Mexico took effect on Tuesday, launching new trade conflicts with the United States’ three biggest trading partners. Economists expect U.S. companies to bear the cost of those tariffs.

Teck produces about 260,000 metric tons of refined zinc annually.

That equates to less than a third of total U.S. demand in 2024 when it stood at 848,000 metric tons, or 6% of the world’s total, according to the International Lead and Zinc Study Group (ILZSG).

BNP Paribas estimates that the United States imports 62% of its zinc needs, mainly from Canada and Mexico.

Price said he expects the tariffs to raise the cost of commodities and drive inflation, and that “there is little upside”.

Vale Base Metals, the base metals spinoff of iron ore giant Vale that sells Canada-produced nickel to the U.S., is also looking to adapt to the tariffs, Vale Base Metals Chair Mark Cutifani said.

“We are talking to everyone on this to see how this can be resolved,” he told reporters.

(Reporting by Divya Rajagopal, Additional reporting by Polina Devitt and Pratima Desai in London; Writing by Daina Beth Solomon; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Veronica Brown and Barbara Lewis)