Gold price gains on tariff, geopolitical risks: planning notes for mine projects
Reviewed by Joe Ashwell
First reported on MINING.com
30 Second Briefing
Gold climbed as much as 1.3% to above $5,200/oz on Wednesday, easing to around $5,180/oz, as investors reacted to a new 10% US import tariff, the threat of a 15% rate, and rising US‑Iran tensions ahead of nuclear talks in Geneva. Silver gained about 3% to reach $90/oz, with both metals holding above recent technical support levels of $5,000/oz for gold and $80/oz for silver after January’s sharp sell-off. TD Securities, JPMorgan and Bank of America now flag potential gold prices of $4,500–$6,300/oz, with BofA seeing $6,000/oz within 12 months.
Technical Brief
- TD Securities links tariff-driven inflation and potential oil supply shocks to renewed gold hedging demand.
- Bart Melek (TD) attributes buying to both inflation expectations and pre-emptive geopolitical risk hedging.
- JP Morgan’s Yuxuan Tang sees tariff uncertainty and Iran tensions as catalysts for a sustained upside shift.
- Bank of America projects bullion at $6,000/oz within 12 months, citing resurgent tariff uncertainty.
- JPMorgan keeps a $6,300/oz year‑end target while lifting its long‑term gold forecast to $4,500/oz.
- Bullion has already recovered more than half of losses from January’s “historic rout”.
- Year‑to‑date, gold is up over 18%, extending its strongest annual performance since 1979.
Our Take
With gold already up 18% year-to-date in the article’s timeframe, projects in our Mining database that were marginal at lower prices (particularly smaller North American and Asian gold developers) are more likely to clear internal hurdle rates and advance studies or construction decisions.
The silver move to around $90/oz with support flagged above $80/oz implies notably improved economics for silver-dominant polymetallic projects in our coverage, where silver by-product credits can materially lower reported cash costs for lead–zinc and gold operations.
A broad-based US import levy in the 10–15% range, as referenced here, tends to raise capex and opex for US-based gold and silver projects in our database that rely on imported steel, consumables and equipment, which could favour brownfield expansions and debottlenecking over greenfield builds in the near term.
Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.
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