President Donald Trump said he will put a 50% tariff on copper imports effective Aug. 1.
“I am announcing a 50% tariff on copper, effective Aug. 1, 2025, after receiving a robust national security assessment,” Trump posted to his Truth Social account Wednesday evening.
Copper prices rose 2.62% after Trump’s comments, then extended its gains before leaping 13.12% upwards and hitting its best one-day gain since 1989.
Source – UPI News
U.S. President Donald Trump’s threatened tariff on copper imports has generated a mass relocation of physical metal, swamping the U.S. market and draining the rest of the world.
The physical response has been so powerful that it has caused the futures arbitrage between the CME contract and the London Metal Exchange (LME) price to collapse.
CME copper inventory has risen by 81% since the start of the year and is now at an eight-year high of 168,563 short tons (152,919 metric tons).
LME copper inventory has slumped to a one-year low of 179,375 tons, with 40% of what remains awaiting physical load-out.
China’s imports of refined copper fell 5% on a year-over-year basis and 20% on a quarter-over-quarter basis in the January-March period as metal was diverted to the U.S.
Source – Reuters
Copper prices drifted higher on Wednesday as investors waited for details of U.S. reciprocal tariffs, but tin extended a rally to its highest in nearly three years on supply fears.
Benchmark three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange (LME) was up 0.2% at $9,711 a metric ton by 0953 GMT after slipping to its weakest in three weeks at $9,668.50.
“Investors are confused, they’re uncertain about the outlook. It’s mostly tariff-related, although there’s also global conflict, currency debasement and confusion around central bank policy,” said Tom Price, head of commodities strategy at Panmure Liberum.
“Aluminium gives you an insight into what copper might do. It has gone through the first phase of factoring in the cost of tariffs and now it’s going into the second phase, where demand is deteriorating,” Price said.
Source – Business Recorder
A Chilean startup backed by BHP Group has delivered its first copper cathodes from a demonstration plant at a mine site in northern Chile as the industry looks to squeeze out more metal from lower quality ore.
Ceibo and firms such as Jetti Resources LLC and Rio Tinto Group’s Nuton venture are looking to roll out catalysts for liberating copper from low-grade ore that miners previously saw as too expensive and difficult to process.
Source – Mining.com
Copper cathode – is high quality copper that is produced through the process of electrolysis.
Electrolysis – is an electric current that passes through a substance to have a chemical change.
The Ministry of Commerce and Industry said in a statement Thursday it revised import figures from April to November after discovering the discrepancy, which had resulted from migrating to a new data transmission system.
The miscalculation led to a four-fold increase in gold imports to a record $14.8 billion in November, causing the trade deficit to widen to $37.8 billion.
Preliminary revisions show gold imports were $37.39 billion in the April-November period, down $11.7 billion from previously reported.
Source – Bloomberg / Live Mint
Spot gold rose 0.5% to $2,663.79 per ounce, as of 9:55 a.m. ET (1455 GMT) and hit its highest since Dec. 13. U.S. gold futures gained 0.5% to $2,679.70.
Weaker private payrolls “is contributing to gold’s move, because ultimately, weaker employment numbers imply that the economy has been weaker than many had expected,” said Bart Melek, head of commodity strategies at TD Securities.
“The bigger factor will be U.S. nonfarm payrolls on Friday, the market is expecting a change of 163 (thousand); anything significantly above that will be negative for gold,” Melek said.
Source – Reuters
Central banks are expected to help keep gold’s stunning rally going this year with buying aimed at further diversifying reserves away from the dollar due to risks stemming from U.S. President Donald Trump’s policies.
Spot gold hit its latest record at $3,167.57 a troy ounce on Thursday for a gain of 19% since the start of 2025 and a hefty 71% rise since the end of 2022.
“Emerging market central banks currently hold around 10% of their assets in gold. They should really hold 30% of their assets in gold,” said BofA commodity strategist Michael Widmer.
“From the central banking perspective (uncertainty) means less incentive to add Treasuries into portfolios and more incentive to actually de-dollarise it,” he said.
Source – Reuters