China feels ripple effect of US copper tariff trade

China’s net imports of refined copper dropped to a one-year low in July as the world’s largest buyer found itself in competition with the US for metal.

- Andy Home

The scramble to ship copper to the US ahead of threatened tariffs, deferred for now, extended to China's bonded warehouse stocks.

China “exported” 121,000 metric tonnes of copper to the US in the first seven months of 2025. The shipments started after President Donald Trump announced a national security investigation into US copper import dependency in February.

However, since US customs counted in only 15 tonnes of refined Chinese copper over the first half of 2025, it's clear that China's “exports” were actually reexports of previously imported non-Chinese metal.

The drain on bonded inventory has stimulated China's own import appetite but the country has had to diversify its supply base to compensate for the US pull on refined copper.

China's outbound shipments of refined copper totalled 426,000 tonnes in the January-July period, already higher than any previous calendar year with the exception of last year’s 458,000 tonnes.

The midyear export spike in 2024 was caused by a short squeeze on the CME contract which resulted in the US premium over the London Metal Exchange (LME) price widening to what was then an unprecedented US$1,100 (35,640 baht) per tonne in May.

Chinese smelters made hay from the global pricing disconnect by shipping metal to LME warehouses in Taiwan and South Korea.

LME holdings of Chinese copper amounted to just 400 tonnes in February 2024. By August they had mushroomed to 164,000 tonnes.

It was, with hindsight, a dry run for this year’s even greater tariff disconnect.