THE copper price was forecast to hit new records this year reaching $12,000 per ton or more, according to a report by the Financial Times earlier this week.The newspaper cited traders saying growing global demand and the threat of trade tariffs by US President Donald Trump would take the metal higher.The London copper price hit a record of almost $11,000 in May 2024, the FT said. After falling back late last year, it has risen in 2025 and was trading at about $10,000 on Tuesday (March 24). “I think we’ll see higher than $12,000,” said Kostas Bintas, global head of metals and minerals at Mercuria.The copper market was “experiencing tightness”, he added. Bintas said huge US imports of copper had reshaped the market, which is normally dominated by Chinese demand. He estimates that about 400,000 to 500,000 tons of copper is at present on its way to the US.Speaking at the Financial Times’ Commodities Summit in Lausanne, trading houses Mercuria and Trafigura and hedge fund Frontier Commodities said they expected the price on the London Metal Exchange to move higher this year.Traders have rushed to import copper into the US ahead of the potential imposition of tariffs on the metal following an investigation that Trump has instigated into “the threat to national security from imports of copper”.The threat of US tariffs has driven a widening gap between the London and New York prices for the metal. This spread had risen on Tuesday to more than $1,350 a ton. Levies of 25% have already been introduced on all US aluminium and steel imports.Demand for copper should also expand as a result of developed economies such as the US and EU needing to upgrade their electricity grids, said traders.The post Copper price forecast to set new record this year appeared first on Miningmx.
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