Gold on the rise in Pakistan

Copper’s rise is being driven “solely by supply concerns surrounding the potential for universal tariffs to be placed on all imports of copper into the U.S.,” said Natalie Scott-Gray, a senior metals demand analyst at StoneX. The U.S. is “heavily reliant on foreign copper, with imports accounting for [around] 45% of demand.”

Copper prices have climbed more than 23% in 2025 through Monday, according to Dow Jones Market Data.

Source – Market Watch

U.S. President Donald Trump sprang a double surprise on the copper market when he announced import tariffs of 50% effective next month.

The August 1 start date signals the end of the race to ship physical metal to the United States to capture the tariff arbitrage.

A lucky few with cargoes already afloat may yet cross the finishing line in time, but the physical tariff trade is rapidly unwinding.

The LME benchmark spread is now in a comfortable contango of $66 per ton, compared with a backwardation of more than $300 per ton at the end of June.

Source – Reuters

The U.S. will soon be flooded with massive amounts of copper shipments in a global rush to front-run President Trump’s probable tariffs, with 100K-150K metric tons of refined copper expected to arrive in U.S. ports in the coming weeks, which potentially would surpass the all-time record of 136,951 tons set in January 2022, Bloomberg reported Wednesday.

Goldman Sachs analysts said they expect all forms of copper shipped to the U.S. to be hit with tariffs by year-end, keeping Comex prices at a hefty premium over other benchmarks, and noted that tariffs could cause China to refine 10K-20K tons/month less copper within the first three months – in a global market that Goldman already expected to face a 180K-ton deficit this year.

Source – Seeking Alpha