Scrap copper prices are rising in 2026 even though the tariff never touched scrap

Why scrap copper prices are rising in 2026

On July 30, 2025, the President signed a proclamation placing a 50% tariff on semi finished copper products. The proclamation left copper scrap and refined copper cathode out of that tariff, and scrap already carried a standing zero duty under ordinary trade rules. Even so, the uncertainty leading up to that decision moved scrap copper prices hard, because scrap trades in step with the COMEX contract, the main United States copper price benchmark. That contract ran from 4.03 dollars a pound in January 2025 to 5.82 dollars by July, crashed to 4.35 dollars the day the tariff excluded refined copper, then climbed to a new high of 6.06 dollars a pound by March 2026. The government own full year average for 2025 came in at a record 4.80 dollars a pound, 14% above 2024, and its analysts attributed the rise to tariff uncertainty, not to any change in scrap supply or demand.

What the 50% tariff actually taxed

Widely repeated coverage calls this simply a copper tariff, but reading the actual 12 clause proclamation text shows a narrower target. The 50% rate applies only to semi finished copper products and intensive copper derivative products. Copper ore, concentrate, refined cathode and anode copper, and copper scrap are all excluded from that rate, and copper scrap separately carries a standing zero duty under normal trade rules, the same rate it carried before the tariff existed. That distinction only shows up in the proclamation clauses themselves, not in summaries of it, and it is the reason a scrap seller paid no new tariff even as scrap prices swung by more than a dollar a pound.

The recycling industry argued against an export control, and won

The investigation behind the tariff, run by the Commerce Secretary, also recommended export controls on high quality copper scrap, on top of a domestic sales mandate requiring scrap to be sold inside the United States. The Recycled Materials Association, the trade group whose members handle over 90% of the domestic recycled copper industry, argued the industry was strong enough that export restrictions were not warranted. The final proclamation adopted only the domestic sales requirement. No export control on scrap appears anywhere in its 12 operative clauses.

Accordingly, the White House agreed and declined to impose any restrictions on the copper industry's ability to export.

Robin K. Wiener, president of the Recycled Materials Association, the trade group whose members handle over 90% of the domestic recycled copper industry. Source 3.

Recycling is growing steadily through all of it

The price story crowds out a steadier trend. United States recovery of old, post consumer, scrap copper rose to 160,000 tons in 2025, after 3 years of decline, and scrap now supplies about 30% of total United States copper supply. World secondary refined production, meaning refined copper made from scrap rather than mined ore, grew 4.5% in 2025 and is forecast to grow 6% in 2026, as new scrap refining capacity comes online in several countries. That growth is tied to new capacity coming online, not to the price swing the tariff caused.