ears of tariffs drove the US to import record levels of copper cathode during the first seven months of 2025, pulling supply away from Europe as Chilean exports were re-routed to the US to capture the wide arbitrage between CME and LME copper benchmarks. The US drew in 342kt of Chilean copper in Q2 25 – equivalent to ~25% of Chile’s total mined output during the period. With a large share of Chilean brands CME-deliverable, suppliers in the region were well placed to exploit the arbitrage, which remained above $1,000/t for much of the year. “We definitely saw the switch from South America to the US [from Europe], ... (full story)