Trump’s copper tariffs fail to stop US metal being shipped to China

The president wants to use tariffs to revive the US copper industry. But American dealers are still sending shiploads of metal to Asia

Reading Time:3 minutes

Copper rods are wound at a copper recycling plant in eastern China’s Anhui province. China continues to source large amounts of scrap metal from the US. Photo: AFP

Ralph Jenningsin Alameda, California

Published: 9:30pm, 25 Jul 2025

Aaron Forkash, a scrap metal dealer based in California, plans to continue exporting copper to Asia even after US President Donald Trump’s new 50 per cent tariff on the metal comes into force on August 1.

The Trump administration has said the import duty will help revive the US copper industry by making it more profitable to produce the metal at home.

But the truth is that it is actually cheaper and easier for American scrap dealers to ship copper to China and other Asian economies than to another part of the United States – and that is unlikely to change after the tariff kicks in, dealers said.

“I don’t know how tariffs are going to work,” Forkash said. “All I can do is compare (prices) on a day-to-day basis.”

Many other American scrap dealers are also expected to continue exporting to copper-hungry China, analysts said, as the tariffs are unlikely to resolve fundamental issues in the US metals industry such as a lack of processing capacity.

That means China – the world’s top importer of processed copper – should still be able to get the metal it needs once the supply diversions caused by a surge in US copper deals ahead of the new tariff taking effect subside.

Select Voice

Choose your listening speed

Get through articles 2x faster

1.25x

250 WPM

Slow

Average

Fast

00:0000:00

1.25x