Trump’s scrap copper quotas too small to shift the market

Proposed limits on U.S. scrap copper exports which aim to reduce reliance on overseas production of the metal, are unlikely to have much impact, analysts say, with exports already below the planned cap.

Copper is a vital material for the power generation and transmission industries, for artificial intelligence and data centres and for electric vehicles.

In new tariff announcements on Wednesday, the White House said it would require 25% of high-quality copper scrap produced in the U.S., the world's largest scrap exporter, to be sold at home, in a move to boost domestic production of refined copper using scrap as a raw material.

The executive order did not define high-quality or specify when the domestic use requirement would begin, though a separate report from the Secretary of Commerce said 2027.

Trade flows were unlikely to change as a result, Goldman Sachs analysts said in a note on Thursday, in part because "high quality scrap is probably kept domestically already."

"If we're looking at the copper scrap market as a whole, there's nothing to see here because the US is already consuming upwards of 40% of copper scrap in its own metal production," said Duncan Hobbs, Research Director at commodity merchant Concord Resources.

The United States exported $4.5 billion of copper scrap last year, around half going to China. However exports to its largest customer have dropped sharply since the on-off trade war, muting any potential impact from Trump's latest proposal.

Exports of scrap copper to China in May were worth just $7.4 million, down from $248 million a year earlier, according to U.S. customs data.

The share of China's scrap copper imports from the US by volume fell to 1% in June from 20.8% in January, Chinese customs data showed.