---
title: "Copper near $14,000 as Trump tariff threat lifts U.S. premium"
author: "Reza Najjar"
datePublished: 2026-07-22T05:45:00.000Z
canonical: "https://scramnews.com/post/00tijuo0kdlkk/copper-near-14000-trump-tariff-watch-2026"
---

Copper held near $14,000 a ton on Wednesday as traders waited for the White House to say how President Donald Trump’s [copper import tariff plan](https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2026/06/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-updates-tariffs-on-steel-aluminum-and-copper-imports) would work. The most active U.S. contract remained close to this week’s [record $14,440-a-ton level](https://www.mining.com/copper-price-nearing-us-record-as-premium-doubles-shanghai-stockpiles-drop-82/), making trade policy the immediate driver of global metals pricing.

The New York premium has become the sharper signal. [MINING.COM reported](https://www.mining.com/copper-price-nearing-us-record-as-premium-doubles-shanghai-stockpiles-drop-82/) that the gap between Comex copper and London Metal Exchange three-month copper widened to almost $600 a ton after Comex September reached $14,440 while LME copper was quoted at $13,851. Buyers are still paying up in the U.S. rather than risk being short of metal if Washington follows through.

Copper is trading more like a policy asset than a simple demand story. The [White House’s June tariff update](https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2026/06/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-updates-tariffs-on-steel-aluminum-and-copper-imports) put copper alongside steel and aluminum in a domestic manufacturing push. Traders still need the details that set the price: which products are covered, when duties start and whether exemptions survive.

The setup echoes last year’s tariff shock. [Reuters reported in July 2025](https://www.reuters.com/business/copper-glut-driven-by-tariff-threat-deflate-us-price-bubble-2025-07-09/) that the threat of a U.S. copper tariff had pulled extra metal into American warehouses, creating the glut that some traders thought would eventually puncture the price bubble. Fresh clarity is still missing, so the trade has fed on itself: metal moves west, the U.S. premium stays elevated and London prices look cheap by comparison.

ING commodities strategist Ewa Manthey told [MINING.COM](https://www.mining.com/copper-price-nearing-us-record-as-premium-doubles-shanghai-stockpiles-drop-82/) that tariff headlines are not the only force at work.

> “Copper is being pulled higher by a tightening Chinese market”
>
> Manthey said.

That distinction matters. Chinese tightness can support the flat price, but it does not by itself explain why the U.S. contract is outpacing London so sharply. The tariff question does.

## Why the premium matters

Underneath the futures move is a physical-market story. Mining.com said Comex warehouses held more than 630,000 tonnes, a record, while Shanghai copper stockpiles were down 82 per cent this year. Metal is being drawn into U.S. storage before policy is clear, leaving the rest of the market tighter and more sensitive to disruptions.

Domestic miners and smelters can live with that more easily than downstream buyers. The White House has presented the tariff regime as a way to rebuild U.S. metals supply chains, a positive in principle for local production. Cable makers, manufacturers and other copper users face a different bill if tariffs land before supply expands, because they pay higher nearby prices and a wider import premium at the same time.

For manufacturers that do not mine their own feedstock, the pass-through is immediate. A wide Comex-LME spread raises replacement costs for wire, construction and electrical-equipment buyers even before a formal duty appears at the border. Nearby hedging demand can therefore stay firm even when the global supply picture looks less dramatic than the U.S. screen suggests.

Kathleen Quirk, chief executive of Freeport-McMoRan, told [Reuters last July](https://www.reuters.com/business/freeport-mcmoran-still-waiting-us-copper-tariff-details-ceo-says-2025-07-23/) that the industry was still waiting for the implementation details needed to model the policy properly.

> “We’re still waiting on additional details on implementation of the tariff announcement”
>
> Quirk said.

Traders are also reluctant to fade the move because the policy path still looks staged rather than settled. Mining.com said proposals circulating in the market had ranged from a 15 per cent opening duty on refined copper to 30 per cent in later phases, making timing and product scope as important as the headline rate.

Until that becomes a settled schedule, copper near $14,000 is less a clean signal on end-user demand than a live wager that U.S. trade policy will keep New York short of metal and London structurally cheaper.