Copper Nears Record Highs Again as Chinese Warehouses Empty Out and Trump Tariff Plan Stays Unresolved

Copper is climbing back toward record territory, and the reasons are a mix of real physical tightness in China and a US tariff decision that Washington still hasn't made.

Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange rose 0.7% to $14,766 a ton, putting it within 1% of the all-time peak of $14,875 hit on September 10, according to Mining.com. Comex December futures touched $6.8710 a pound intraday before settling near $6.8370, edging toward the record settlement of $6.8885 set on September 9, Mining.com reported. That marked copper's sixth straight winning session, its longest streak in four months.

ZeroHedge, citing Bloomberg, put the LME contract at $14,763 a ton, noting copper has climbed 18% this year and 70% since its April 2025 low. That's a bigger gain than CNN reported in its own coverage of the record run, which put the year-to-date gain at more than 15% and the 12-month gain at 40%. The rally has kept accelerating in the days since.

China's warehouses are the trigger

Cathode inventories tracked by Shanghai Metals Market fell to 43,900 tons last week, the lowest level since 2023, both Mining.com and ZeroHedge reported. That's down sharply from the roughly 63,000 tons Shanghai Futures Exchange data showed in early September, according to Archyde. SMM told Mining.com that imported copper arriving in China is going straight to fabricators instead of sitting in warehouses, and the Yangshan premium paid for delivered copper hit its highest level in nearly four years.

Sandeep Daga, head of research at Metal Intelligence Centre, told Mining.com Chinese buyers are stocking up ahead of exchange closures from September 25-27 and again October 1-7. Cash copper settled at a $62-a-ton premium to the three-month contract on Monday, up from just $26 a session earlier, a backwardation pattern that signals buyers can't wait for delivery, Mining.com reported.

LME headline inventories actually rose to 255,900 tons as of September 17, according to Mine Listings, citing Westmetall data. But that number is misleading on its own. Mining.com reported that cancelled warrants — metal already booked for withdrawal — climbed to 122,150 tons, or 48% of everything on warrant, leaving only about 133,725 tons actually available to the market.

The tariff wildcard

President Trump already imposed a 50% tariff on semi-finished copper products, according to CNN. Traders have spent months bracing for a possible 15% tariff on refined copper imports too. When Reuters reported the White House's copper tariff plan had stalled amid affordability concerns, prices dropped more than 5% off the September 10 peak, both ZeroHedge and Mining.com noted. The rally since has essentially retraced that entire selloff.

The uncertainty itself has driven behavior that's now squeezing supply outside the US. Edward Meir, commodity analyst at Marex, told CNN that traders are stockpiling because they don't know whether Trump will impose the tariff. "If he imposes copper tariffs, people want to make sure they have enough metal to tide them over," Meir said. "So there's been a mad rush."

That rush has piled up in American warehouses. Comex stocks hold 696,204 tons, about 69% of all exchange-monitored copper globally, after a record surge in July imports, Mining.com reported. Storage at the Port of New Orleans, the main Comex delivery hub, is largely full, with another 100,000 tons of African and South American copper due in over September and October.

The surplus problem

There isn't actually a global shortage of refined copper. CNN reported flatly that the world has a surplus of refined copper right now. The International Copper Study Group forecasts a 96,000-ton refined copper surplus for 2026, according to Mine Listings, even as it projects Chinese refined copper demand rising 1.9% against global usage growth slowing to just 1.6%.

The scarcity story on the mining side is real, though. Global mine output fell 1.1% in the first half of 2026, according to ICSG data cited by CNN, with Chile — the world's top producer — down 6.6% over the same period. Bloomberg reported in early September that global mined production is at risk of its first annual decline since 2017 unless output recovers in the second half.

The price spike looks less like the world running out of copper and more like copper getting stuck in the wrong place, with tariff-driven US stockpiling draining warehouses in London and Shanghai while a technical global surplus sits underneath it. BMI, a unit of Fitch Solutions, told Archyde that "tariff uncertainty should continue to support copper, although already elevated prices are likely to limit near-term gains." Ewa Manthey, commodities strategist at ING, told Mining.com the physical tightness in China is real and is offsetting the tariff uncertainty rather than being caused by it alone.

The next scheduled catalyst is whatever the White House ultimately decides on the 15% refined copper tariff. Until that decision lands, traders have no reason to stop hedging against it, and Shanghai's warehouses have no reason to refill before the country's holiday closures begin September 25.