JPMorgan: The United States may impose copper tariffs, and copper prices are expected to rise to $11,000 next year.

JPMorgan Chase released a report stating that the global refined copper supply gap is expected to expand to 160,000 tons by 2026, and maintained its forecast for next year's copper price, with an average price of around $11,000 per ton in 2026. JPMorgan Chase made the above prediction in a report last Friday, which was based on an executive order by US President Trump. Trump ordered last week to investigate whether to impose tariffs on imported copper products. Due to its durability, malleability, and conductivity, copper has long been widely used in the construction, transportation, and power industries. In recent years, copper has also been used in the manufacturing of electric vehicles, green energy plants, and data centers. JPMorgan Chase stated that by the end of the third quarter of 2025, the United States is expected to impose tariffs of at least 10% on refined copper and copper products, with a significant risk of further increasing the tariffs to 25%. The report stated that in the months leading up to the implementation of copper tariffs, the US market may experience excess inventory accumulation, which will lead to a tightening of copper supply in other regions around the world. This trend is expected to drive copper prices up in the second half of 2025, reaching around $10,400 per ton. Influenced by Trump's tariff threats, the price difference between copper in the US and other regions has widened significantly. It is reported that commodity giants such as Glencore and Trafigura are taking advantage of this price difference for arbitrage opportunities. It is reported that last month, copper prices in the US were once $1,300 per ton higher than in other regions, while shipping copper to the US usually costs $300 or lower per ton. In comparison, the profit margins for commodity-grade metals in regular trading are very thin. JPMorgan Chase predicts that global copper demand growth will decrease slightly from 3.2% in 2024 to 2.9% in 2025. Data from the International Copper Study Group (ICSG) shows that in December last year, the global refined copper market supply gap was 22,000 tons, narrower than the 124,000 ton supply gap in November. It is worth mentioning that Citigroup also released a report last week, predicting that the US government will ultimately implement tariffs of up to 25% on copper by the fourth quarter of 2025. This article was reprinted from Caishen. Editor: Chen Xiaoyi.