Jim Rickards has been wrong before. He predicted gold at $10,000 in 2016 and it stayed under $1,400. He called for a dollar collapse that never came. He forecast depressions that turned into bull markets. But he has also been right about the 2008 crisis, the 2020 pandemic crash, and two Trump elections — and the difference between his hits and misses matters for understanding his current thesis. His misses have been about timing. His hits have been about structure. The thesis he is laying out now about the Pebble Project in Alaska is a structural argument, not a timing call, and that is worth examining on its own terms.
The Deposit That Changes the Map
The Pebble Project sits on 1,840 mineral claims in Southwest Alaska, roughly 200 miles from Anchorage and 125 miles from Bristol Bay. It was discovered by Cominco in 1989 and acquired by the current owner in 2001. It has been sitting undeveloped for thirty-seven years because of a permitting process that is one of the most contested in American history.
The numbers that Rickards uses are not exaggerated. Measured and indicated resources stand at 6.5 billion tonnes of ore grading 0.40% copper and 0.34 grams per ton gold. That works out to 57 billion pounds of copper and 71 million ounces of gold in the measured and indicated category alone. Inferred resources add another 25 billion pounds of copper and 36 million ounces of gold. At current prices, the in-situ value of the deposit exceeds $1 trillion.
The deposit is the largest undeveloped gold deposit in the world and the largest undeveloped copper deposit in the world. Those are not marketing claims. They are geological facts that have been independently estimated and published in the company’s technical reports. The deposit also contains molybdenum — 3.4 billion pounds in measured and indicated — and rhenium, a critical mineral used in jet engine superalloys that no other US deposit supplies at scale.
The Three Smoking Guns
Rickards identifies three specific developments that he says point to a Pebble Project green light. Each one is a real event with a paper trail. The question is whether they add up to what he claims.
Smoking Gun One: Executive Order 14241.
Signed on March 20, 2025, this order defines “mineral” to include copper and gold — neither of which was previously on the federal critical minerals list. It orders all federal agencies to compile lists of permittable projects within ten days and expedite their permitting. It invokes the Defense Production Act, Titles III and VII, and delegates authority to the Secretary of Defense and the CEO of the US International Development Finance Corporation for domestic mineral production loans. The practical effect is that copper and gold projects now qualify for the same expedited treatment as lithium, cobalt, and rare earths. Pebble, as the largest undeveloped copper deposit in the world, would be a natural candidate for that treatment.
Smoking Gun Two: The Howard Lutnick Connection.
Howard Lutnick is Trump’s Secretary of Commerce. Before that, he was the Chairman and CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald. Cantor Fitzgerald has been the lead underwriter for the company that owns Pebble, raising more than $123 million since 2015 and collecting roughly $6.8 million in commissions. Lutnick has been on the record saying “It’s time to bring copper home.” Susie Wiles, Trump’s Chief of Staff, previously lobbied for the same company while at Ballard Partners. Rickards does not claim these are smoking guns in the sense of impropriety. He presents them as structural alignment — the people in charge of the permitting apparatus have professional histories with the company that needs the permit. That does not guarantee a favorable outcome, but it is a different environment than the Biden administration, where the EPA was actively trying to kill the project.
Smoking Gun Three: Executive Order 14153 and the Congressional Review Act.
On day one of Trump’s second term, January 20, 2025, he signed Executive Order 14153 — “Unleashing Alaska’s Extraordinary Resource Potential.” The order requires the immediate reversal of Biden-era restrictions on Alaska resource development. It directs the Secretary of the Army to review, revise, or rescind any agency action that may hinder a critical project in Alaska. It is broad by design.
Then in October 2025, Congress used the Congressional Review Act — a 30-year-old law that had not been used on land management plans since 1996 — to repeal the Biden-era Central Yukon Resource Management Plan. The vote was 50-46. That plan was one of the regulatory barriers that the Pebble Project faced. The CRA repeal wiped it out.
The Copper Thesis Behind the Gold
One of the strongest arguments in Rickards’ thesis has nothing to do with Pebble specifically. It is about the structural deficit in copper that the world is facing.
S&P Global published a 116-page study called “Copper in the Age of AI” that lays out the numbers. Current global copper demand sits at roughly 28 million metric tons per year. By 2040, that figure is projected to reach 42 million metric tons — a 50% increase. The projected shortfall by 2040 is approximately 10 million metric tons. To close that gap, the world needs roughly 80 new sizable copper mines built by 2040. The Pebble deposit alone contains 57 billion pounds of copper in the measured and indicated category. That is roughly 26 million metric tons — the equivalent of roughly one year of global demand.
The AI data center buildout is accelerating this timeline. A single 1-gigawatt AI data center requires roughly 50,000 tons of copper for power distribution, cooling systems, cabling, and transformers. By 2030, AI data centers are projected to consume 14% of US electricity, up from roughly 5% today. The S&P study projects that AI-driven copper demand will add 2 million metric tons of new demand between 2025 and 2040.
Copper prices have already responded. The metal hit an all-time high of $13,300 per ton in January 2026 — up 60% from April 2025. Goldman Sachs has a $13,735 target. Citi targets $15,000. The International Copper Study Group projects a 150,000-ton refined deficit in 2026. JP Morgan puts the deficit at 330,000 tons.
The supply side is constrained. Codelco, Chile’s state-owned copper producer, is seeing ore grades fall from 1.02% to 0.66%. Indonesia’s Grasberg mine — one of the largest in the world — declared force majeure after a mudslide, losing 500,000 tons of production over 12 to 15 months. The DRC is dealing with seismic disruptions that have cut 90,000 tons.
The case for Pebble is not just that it is a giant copper deposit. It is that the world is running out of giant copper deposits that are not already in production, and the ones that remain are increasingly in jurisdictions with political risk. Pebble sits in the United States, in a state that wants the project built, under an administration that has made mineral self-sufficiency a policy priority.
Project Vault and the $12 Billion Signal
On February 2, 2026, Trump launched Project Vault — a $12 billion Strategic Critical Minerals Reserve. The structure is $10 billion in EXIM bank loans plus $2 billion in private capital. It is the first US civilian strategic minerals stockpile in history. The order adds copper to the USGS critical minerals list, which it had not been on before 2025.
The significance for Pebble is indirect but real. The government is not just saying it wants more domestic mineral production. It is putting money behind the statement. A $12 billion stockpile program needs sources of supply. Pebble is the largest undeveloped copper deposit in the country. It would be the natural beneficiary of a policy environment that is actively seeking domestic copper production.
The Timeline That Keeps Moving
The original deadline that Rickards attached to this thesis was April 15, 2026. That was the date when final plaintiff briefs were due in the Alaska Federal District Court case where the Pebble Project owner is challenging the EPA’s Clean Water Act Section 404(c) veto. The briefs were filed on time. But the deadline was also presented as a potential catalyst date — the day when the administration might signal its intent to overturn the EPA determination.
That did not happen. The promo was extended with a new deadline of July 1.
On June 25, 2026, oral arguments were held in front of Judge Sharon Gleason in Alaska Federal District Court. Judge Gleason said she would try to make a “near term” determination. As of July 17, 2026, that determination has not arrived.
The July 1 deadline has also come and gone without the kind of announcement that Rickards’ thesis anticipated. The underlying argument — that Trump’s executive orders, the Lutnick connection, and the CRA repeal create a clear path to approval — does not depend on any single date. But the pattern of extended deadlines is worth noting.
The case is now in Judge Gleason’s hands. She can uphold the EPA veto, which would effectively end the Pebble permitting effort for the remainder of this political cycle. She can overturn or remand the determination, which would clear the path for the Army Corps of Engineers to issue a permit. The decision is binary, and it is the single most important variable in the entire thesis.
What the Thesis Actually Says
Rickards is not making a stock pitch. He is making a policy thesis with a stock attached. The thesis is: the United States needs copper, the Pebble deposit is the largest undeveloped source of copper in the country, the current administration has the policy tools and the political will to approve it, and the legal and regulatory barriers that blocked it for twenty years are being dismantled one by one.
The stock behind the tease is the company that owns 100% of the Pebble Project. It has no other assets. It is a pure play on the Pebble permitting outcome. That is why the stock can rally 10x on a favorable ruling or collapse to near-zero on an unfavorable one.
The individual elements of the thesis are real. The executive orders exist. The Lutnick connection is documented. The copper deficit is real and worsening. The deposit is genuinely the largest undeveloped gold and copper deposit in the world. The question is whether those elements add up to a permitting outcome that has eluded the project for thirty-seven years.
The answer will come from Judge Gleason’s courtroom in the near term. If the ruling goes Pebble’s way, the thesis is proven and the stock re-rates to reflect a trillion-dollar deposit that is finally open for business. If the ruling upholds the EPA veto, the thesis is deferred — not dead, because the political environment could shift again, but deferred long enough that the current stock price would not survive it.
That is the bet. It is not complicated. It is just binary.