Copper tariffs at two-week low, but China data support

Data released on Monday revealed that China's manufacturing sector expanded at its fastest rate in an entire year in March.

Copper prices fell on Monday, their lowest in over two weeks. Worries about new U.S. Tariffs are due this week cushioned the losses by strong factory data coming from China's top metals consumer.

The benchmark three-month copper price on the London Metal Exchange fell 0.7% at 9730.50 per metric tonne by 1000 GMT to its lowest level since March 13.

The stock market and other financial markets were sent into a tailspin after U.S. president Donald Trump announced that he would introduce reciprocal tariffs to all countries this week.

Data released on Monday revealed that China's manufacturing sector expanded at its fastest rate in an entire year in March.

Ole Hansen is the head of commodity strategy for Saxo Bank, Copenhagen. He said that "the Chinese data keeps the market from aggressively reversing some of its recent strong gains. We're still holding relatively high levels."

LME copper is up 11% this year, while the U.S. Comex has risen by 27%.

Hansen said that traders have been buying up copper in anticipation of tariffs expected on the metal. However, these tariffs will be implemented within the next few weeks, so there is not much time left to complete the trades.

U.S. Comex Copper Futures fell 0.7% to $5.12 a lb. This brings the premium of Comex to LME up to $1,542 a tonne.

Hansen stated, "I believe that the arbitrage period has closed or is about to close, which brings the risk of the Comex contract suddenly seeing a significant additional weakness."

The Shanghai Futures Exchange saw a 0.4% increase in tin, to 282,350 Yuan ($38,938.92), due to concerns about supply disruptions following an earthquake that occurred last Friday in Myanmar, which is rich in tin.

Tin prices on the LME fell 1.6%, to $35,815 per ton.

Other metals include LME aluminium, which fell by 0.1% to 2,544 per ton. Zinc also dropped 0.9% to 2,830.50; lead fell by 0.3% to $2,000 and nickel dropped 2.7% to $16,945. $1 = 7.2511 Chinese Yuan Renminbi