Copper anodes ready for shipment at the Codelco El Teniente processing facility in Chile in April.
Photographer: Cristobal Olivares/BloombergOnce-in-a-Generation Copper Trade Upends a $250 Billion Market
The Aug. 1 deadline for Trump's 50% copper tariffs signals the endgame for the most profitable trade that industry veterans say they have ever seen.
The phone calls started within days. In late February, President Donald Trump ordered a probe to potentially tariff copper imports. Almost immediately, China’s top metals bosses began receiving inquiries from some of the biggest Western commodity traders — companies that for decades have played a key role in supplying metal to feed the factories, construction sites and power grids of the world’s top consumer of raw materials.
But now instead of selling copper to China, the traders wanted to buy from it. Lots of copper, as soon as possible. They were willing to pay big money to get it. They even offered to pay their Chinese customers sizable amounts if they would cancel their obligations to supply them, freeing up that copper too.