Copper piles up in the US as China pays a premium

Copper is piling up in American warehouses – even as the New York price premium has vanished.

President Trump’s policies whipsawed copper prices, resulting in front-loading ahead of expected tariffs.  Meanwhile, Chinese copper imports declined from their 2022-24 levels, trade figures in our chart show; inventories today are well below their March peak.

Washington’s exemption for copper cathodes made US stockpiling less urgent, but Chinese buyers are still paying record import premiums. Shipping metal across the Pacific would take time and money, while uncertainty over future tariffs complicates decision making at a time when the US data-center boom has been a ready consumer of this key industrial metal.