While Wall Street focuses on the S&P 500’s worst quarter in three years due to trade-war threats, the nuclear enterprise could also face market slowdown as uranium stocks fall even further, according to published reports.
President Donald Trump has imposed a 10% tariff on energy resources from Canada since early March. He paused the tariffs until Apr. 2, which he dubbed “Liberation Day” to announce sweeping 10% base tariffs on foreign goods. According to Reuters, separate tariffs on critical minerals were under consideration for “Liberation Day.”
Since the U.S. nuclear power industry relies on Canada for more than one-fourth of its uranium, uncertainty over tariffs thus far has discouraged buyers, according to Bloomberg. Uranium futures have dropped 40% from their 2024 peak, and uranium producer Cameco Corp. is down 19% so far this year.
That said, Tim Gitzel, chief executive officer of Cameco, said in an earnings call in February that potential tariffs was a situation the company was “carefully monitoring.”
“In the past, we’ve taken actions, such as positioning material ahead of expected deliveries and revising our contract terms to protect us from unexpected future implementation of taxes or tariffs,” Gitzel said. “The U.S. threatening the imposition of a 10% tariff on Canadian energy products, we have proactively taken some steps to minimize the potential impact.”
Cameco chief financial officer Grant Isaac also told a mining conference in February that there’s not much danger of running out of fuel for nuclear reactors in the near term given the long-term nature of uranium-supply contracts. Isaac said reactors are well-supplied through this year and most of 2026.
The Department of Energy and its semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration has been part of federal efforts since the Joe Biden administration to wean the U.S. off of imported uranium from other countries, especially since a ban on Russian-imported uranium will go into effect in 2028. DOE in December added six companies to a contract to supply low-enriched uranium for commercial nuclear power generation with a total value of $3.4 billion over 10 years.
However, the U.S. is still the world’s largest uranium buyer and outsourcing 95% of nuclear fuel from abroad.
Meanwhile, U.S. tariffs of 25% on Canadian steel and aluminum could also increase shipbuilding costs, potentially affecting nuclear-armed submarines. On March 25, while testifying to the Senate Armed Services Seapower subcommittee, Acting Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition Brett Seidle said tariffs in that arena could “clearly” drive costs.
“Probably about half of our aluminum and a third of our steel in [2023] came from Canada,” Seidle said. “But having said that, the steel plate and bar for our shipbuilding efforts, most of it is domestically sourced, but we are expecting impacts, but we don’t have our hands around yet just what those impacts are.”
When Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), ranking member of the Seapower subcommittee, asked Seidle if it would be hard to go from “66% domestic to 100% domestic, [snaps fingers] like that?” Seidle did not respond immediately, to which Kaine replied, “it’d be hard.”
