Copper futures surged to a record high Tuesday after President Donald Trump announced a 50% tariff on all copper imports.
“Today we’re doing copper,” Trump said at a cabinet meeting after rattling off his earlier tariffs on aluminum and steel.
“I believe the tariff on copper — we’re going to make it 50%,” he said, a statement Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick affirmed.
Commodity traders reacted immediately, pushing the Bloomberg Copper Subindex up 54 points to 466 — the highest level ever recorded.
The tariffs are expected to take effect by late July or early August, Lutnick told CNBC on Tuesday.
“The idea is to bring copper production home — bring the ability to make copper, which is key to the industrial sector, back home to America,” he said. (RELATED: Trump Announces New Tariffs On Japan, South Korea)
Trump ordered an inquiry into copper tariffs under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act, according to CNN. The statute lets the president impose import restrictions on national security grounds — the same authority Trump used to slap tariffs on steel and aluminum in June.
Copper is a crucial component in virtually every electronic device. The metal is used in electrical wiring, plumbing and numerous alloys and is a key input for automobiles, computers and many more devices.
The U.S. still buys nearly half of the copper it uses abroad; the U.S. Geological Survey’s 2025 Mineral Commodity Summary puts net-import reliance at 45% of domestic consumption in 2024, with refined copper arriving chiefly from Chile, Canada and Mexico, in that order.
The new tariffs are expected to ripple through nearly every American sector.
