Copper tariff talk causes price spike

President Donald Trump has ordered the U.S. Department of Commerce to investigate how copper imports threaten U.S. national security and economic stability and the potential need for trade remedies.

“Despite possessing ample copper reserves, America’s smelting and refining capacity lags behind global competitors like China, which controls over 50 percent of global smelting,” the White House says in a fact sheet released Feb. 25. “The United States isn’t even in the top five nations in copper smelting capacity.

“America’s reliance on copper imports has surged from virtually zero percent in 1991 to 45 percent of consumption in 2024, heightening risks to supply chain security.”

The document defines copper as playing a "vital" role in defense applications, infrastructure and emerging technologies like clean energy, electric vehicles and advanced electronics, noting copper is the Defense Department’s second-most utilized material.

The fact sheet does not place a timeline on the investigation or any tariff that might result from the investigation’s findings. However, a Reuters report quotes White House trade adviser Peter Navarro as saying the investigation would be completed quickly, or “in Trump time.”

The same report points to potential inflationary aspects of putting a tariff on inbound copper—a criticism that also has been applied to announced tariffs on inbound steel and aluminum.

“Trump’s [tariff] blitz has begun to take a toll on consumer confidence, which had initially surged following his election victory in November over former President Joe Biden as Trump promised to bring down living costs," the Reuters report says.

Reuters correspondents David Lawder and Andrea Shalal also refer to survey results released earlier this week by the New York-based Conference Board that point to “the largest drop in consumer confidence in three-and-a-half years, with households expecting a resurgence in inflation.”

In a late Tuesday email to subscribers, John Gross of the New York-based Copper Journal says the the price of copper rose sharply on the Comex exchange shortly after that commodities market had closed for the day.

As of about 1 a.m. Wednesday, Comex copper was trading at $4.73 per pound, up by 20 cents (or 4.2 percent) from the close of the market Tuesday, according to the Google finance site.