Trump orders investigation into US copper imports

President Donald Trump has ordered an investigation into possible new tariffs on copper imports, according to a report by Reuters, though no information was available on the White House or Commerce Department websites as of 6 p.m. Feb. 25, with the potential tariff rate to be determined by the investigation.

The move is intended to rebuild U.S. production of the metal, which is used in products that range from military hardware to consumer goods.

Trump reportedly signed an order directing Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to start the investigation under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, the law Trump used in his first term to impose 25 percent tariffs on steel and aluminum.

“Like our steel and aluminum industries, our great American copper industry has been decimated by global actors attacking our domestic production,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has been reported as saying by numerous media outlets. He adds that U.S. industries and national defense depended on copper and "it should be made in America, no exemptions, no exceptions."

"It's time for copper to come home," he says.

White House trade adviser Peter Navarro is quoted as saying China has used state subsidies and economic influence to gain control over global copper production; however, Chile, Canada and Mexico are the countries likely to be most affected by the tariffs as they supplied the most refined copper and copper articles to the U.S, in 2024, Reuters says, citing U.S. Census Bureau data.

A White House official told Reuters the investigation would look at imports of raw mined copper, copper concentrates, copper alloy, scrap copper and derivative products made from the metal.

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While the Department of Energy (DOE) recognizes copper as a critical material, the U.S. Geological Survey does not.

In late November of last year, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 245-155, passing H.R. 8446, the Critical Mineral Consistency Act, which would have added the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) list of Critical Materials to the United States Geological Survey’s (USGS’) list of Critical Minerals, removing DOE Critical Materials from the disadvantage of not being eligible for the more extensive energy-focused benefits conferred to the USGS Critical Mineral list and conveying the same benefit to both lists.  

While the statutory definitions of Critical Minerals and Critical Materials are similar, the DOE and USGS use different methodologies when developing their lists. The USGS finalized the Critical Mineral methodology and list in 2022, focused solely on the supply and relied on data from 2015 to 2018, whereas the DOE balanced essentiality and supply risk and looked at projections into the short and medium-term future when it announced the Critical Material list in 2023. Copper, electrical steel, fluorine, silicon and silicon carbide are all Critical Materials but not Critical Minerals resulting from these different methodologies.

The term ended without a Senate vote on the bill, however.

The White House official told Reuters U.S. copper will be insufficient to meet the demand created by electric vehicles and the growth of artificial intelligence necessitating trade protections to develop domestic copper smelting and refining capacity.

A number of investments have been made in secondary copper production in the U.S. recently, with Ames Copper Group having opened the first greenfield copper smelting operation in the United States to use a tilting furnace with a state-of-the-art fume treatment facility to produce copper anode from scrap in Shelby, North Carolina, in 2023. That was followed by investments in U.S. secondary copper smelting and refining capacity in the U.S. by German companies Wieland in Shelbyville, Kentucky and Aurubis in Richmond, Georgia.

Regarding its investment in the U.S., Matt Bedingfield, president, Recycling, Wieland North America, told Recycling Today in 2023 that the disappearance of the U.S. secondary copper refining market has "led to the U.S. needing to export about 50 percent of our scrap, which is equal to roughly 1 million tons." In addition to exporting nearly half of the copper scrap generated in the country, the U.S. imports 1 million tons of refined copper annually. “It doesn’t make sense,” Bedingfield said. “It’s the least sustainable tactic."

In other tariffs news, the president said Monday, Feb. 24, that the 25 percent tariffs he introduced on Mexico and Canada shortly after taking office but later put on hold when the countries offered to increase border security would be implemented March 4.