It's a commodities kind of day. Today, we're going to go a little sideways, though, from American public media.

This is Marketplace.

In Los Angeles, I'm Kai Rizzdahl.

It is Tuesday.

Today, the very last day of March, 26.

Good as it always is to have you along, everybody.

Commodities is where the opening stanzas of the program today find us.

Not, though, the usual suspect, because fine, sure, oil,

important, yes, but not the only globally critical item that is in the news. We're going to do

a commodities one, two, today aluminum and then coal. Aluminum prices have been rising since the war started.

Attacks on smelters, you've probably heard of those.

The closure of the Strait of Hormuz, you've definitely heard of that.

Also, the rising cost of the energy that those smelters need.

Prices are up around 10% since the start of the war.

That's according to CRU Group.

And that only adds to the 50% tariff that businesses have been paying on

imported metals. So Marketplace's Justin Ho called some businesses that rely on aluminum to find out

how they're being affected and what they're going to do about it. Wolftooth Components is a bike

parts manufacturer based near Minneapolis that makes hundreds of different products,

including gears, pedals, and seatposts. I would say aluminum's in probably 90% of our products.

That's co-owner Brendan Moore. He says ever since the war started, the price of the aluminum he

buys has risen about 10%, even though the company mostly uses aluminum that's made in the U.S.

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