The tariff pause appears to be just a minor speed bump for silver, rather than a serious threat to a rally that’s seen it triple in value over the past year.
Silver dropped on Friday after the US refrained from putting import tariffs on critical minerals, but was still up 15 per cent for the week on surging demand for precious metals.
The white metal fell as much as 2.3 per cent in Asian trading after a modest decline on Thursday. The threat of levies on minerals including silver and platinum had been one among several drivers of a breakneck rally, but US President Donald Trump stopped short of imposing the duties, while not ruling out doing so in future.
Still, the unpredictable nature of Trump’s policymaking “suggests that the practice of keeping metal onshore in the US to back short futures positions is likely to persist,” consultancy Metals Focus said in a note.
The tariff pause appears to be just a minor speed bump for silver, rather than a serious threat to a rally that’s seen it triple in value over the past year. In recent weeks, Trump’s renewed attacks on the Federal Reserve and his increasingly aggressive foreign policy has added more impetus. Silver jumped more than 20 per cent in the four sessions through Wednesday, while gold, platinum and palladium have also climbed.
Silver fell 0.8 per cent to $91.6861 an ounce as of 9:21 a.m. in Singapore. Gold dipped 0.3 per cent to $4,603.49, but was up more than 2 per cent for the week, while platinum and palladium edged lower. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index was flat.
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Published on January 16, 2026
