Trump orders scaled-back on some copper imports, citing national security

The United States will impose a 50 per cent tariff on copper pipes and wiring, President Donald Trump said on Wednesday, but details of the levy fell short of the sweeping restrictions that were expected and left out copper input materials such as ores, concentrates and cathodes.

U.S. Comex copper futures plunged 19.5 per cent after the announcement, quickly unwinding a premium over the London global benchmark that had grown in recent weeks. Traders had assumed U.S. copper mines would see a financial benefit from the tariff.

Trump first teased the tariff in early July, implying that it would apply to all types of the red metal, ranging from cathodes produced by mines and smelters to wiring and other finished products.

But a proclamation released by the White House said the tariff, which kicks in on Friday, will apply only to semi-finished copper products and other products that heavily use copper when being manufactured.

“Copper is being imported into the United States in such quantities and under such circumstances as to threaten to impair the national security of the United States,” Trump said in his proclamation.

The tariffs will exclude copper scrap and copper concentrates, mattes, cathodes and anodes, some of the main products of copper mines and smelters.

The move is essentially a boost to Chile and Peru, two of the world’s largest copper miners.

“The newly announced copper tariffs are far from universal tariffs that markets were concerned about,” said Gracelin Baskaran, director of the critical minerals security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “It’s less punitive than markets initially expected.”

The measure came after a U.S. investigation under Section 232, which Trump ordered in February. The report was delivered to the White House on June 30 by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, according to the proclamation.

That section of U.S. trade law allows the president to impose levies on certain goods that are said to threaten “national security.”

Trump said he may still impose further tariffs and has asked Lutnick to provide an update on the domestic copper market by June 2026. At that point, Trump will evaluate whether to impose a phased universal import duty on refined copper of 15 per cent starting in 2027 and of 30 per cent starting in 2028, he said.

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Along with tariffs, the order calls for steps to support the domestic copper industry, including requiring 25 per cent of high-quality scrap produced in the U.S. to also be sold within the country.

Freeport-McMoRan, the largest U.S. copper producer, said it would comment after it reviewed Trump’s order in detail.

Chile’s Codelco, the world’s biggest copper producer, praised the exclusion of cathodes as a positive for the company and for Chile, which is the top supplier of refined copper to the U.S.

BHP, which operates the world’s largest copper mine in Chile, and Antofagasta, which ships copper from Chile to the U.S. and wants to build a U.S. copper mine, did not immediately reply to requests for comment.