Copper resumed its scorching rally to surpass $13,000 a ton for the first time, as a renewed rush to ship metal to the US fired up bullish traders and investors.
Benchmark prices on the London Metal Exchange surged as much as 4.4%, the latest in a series of leaps higher that have lifted copper more than 20% since mid-November.
The rally has been underpinned by a rush to ship metal to the US, as the ongoing threat of import tariffs from President Donald Trump has caused US copper prices to trade at a persistent premium to those on the LME. That has spurred warnings that the rest of the world could run short of copper and inspired bullish investors, already attracted to the metal thanks to its uses in everything from data centers to electric-vehicle batteries.
“The historic US inventory build is still in the driving seat of global copper prices,” said Helen Amos, commodities analyst at BMO Capital Markets Ltd.
A strike at the Mantoverde mine in Chile helped to fuel speculative activity in the market, according to Al Munro, senior base metals strategist at Marex.
“The reality is this is a speculative money-led bid as the market sees further topside, especially during the first quarter of 2026, with many having been sidelined hoping for a dip,” Munro said.
Copper is increasingly in focus as governments fret about the supply of critical metals. It is vital for the energy transition due to its role in electrical wiring, but miners and traders have long warned that investments in new mines were not keeping pace with the new sources of demand, while existing mines have faced a series of setbacks.
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It has also been boosted by a broader surge in metals prices, with investor flows lifting gold, silver and platinum to records in recent days, while aluminum and tin have hit multi-year highs.
A deadly accident at the world’s second-largest copper mine in Indonesia and an underground flood in the Democratic Republic of Congo were some of the supply disruptions that helped drive copper prices higher last year.
“Years of underinvestment and ongoing mine disruptions have left the market with little buffer, while tariff policy uncertainty and stockpiling are intensifying the squeeze on available metal,” said Ewa Manthey, commodities strategist at ING Groep NV.
Still, the latest move has been driven by uncertainty over future US tariff policy, analysts and traders said. Trump fuelled a massive rush to ship copper to the US in the first half of last year before putting an abrupt end to the trade in late July by exempting refined copper from any import tariffs.
But the trade has revived in recent months as a plan to revisit the question of import tariffs caused US prices once again to trade at a premium. Trade data shows that US copper imports in December jumped to the highest since July.
Kostas Bintas, the high-profile head of metals at Mercuria Energy Group Ltd., in a November interview warned that the US import rush would leave the rest of the world without copper, predicting that “this is the big one” for copper bulls.
“Low inventories across major exchanges outside the US are leaving little room to absorb any further supply shocks,” ING’s Manthey said.
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The US holds roughly half of global inventories, but only accounts for less than 10% of global demand, according to UBS. That means there is a risk of lower supplies elsewhere. The cash-to-three month spread in London remains firmly in backwardation, a pattern that points to near-term tightness.
“We estimate the global refined copper market was in surplus in 2025, but metal/inventory flows were distorted by US tariffs that resulted in a material lift in US imports,” UBS Group AG analysts, including Daniel Major, wrote in a note Monday.
Three-month copper rose 4% to $12,990.50 a ton on the London Metal Exchange at 3:38 p.m. local time.