Copper shipments into the United States are expected to accelerate in the coming weeks in a final scramble to get metal across the border before U.S. President Donald Trump's higher than expected 50% tariff on imported copper takes effect.

“The U.S. has been sucking in lots of copper that it didn’t really need from around the world,” Albert Mackenzie is a copper analyst at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence. President Trump had signaled that the tariffs were coming months ago, prompting many U.S. buyers to stockpile copper ahead of time.

President Donald Trump sent out a slew of letters Wednesday to some global trading partners, advising them of tariff levels as high as 50% for their exports to the United States.

U.S. President Donald Trump's 50% tariff on copper has placed a record premium on prices of the metal in the United States that is likely to ease over the coming months as a stockpile created by traders anticipating the levy works through the system.

President Trump is again amping up his trade threats, unveiling a new batch of letters to country leaders outlining tariffs on goods imported from their countries beginning in August. The highlight of his letter barrage late Wednesday was his announcement of a coming 50% tariff on goods from Brazil in a letter sent to its president,

U.S. President Donald Trump has launched a global trade war with an array of tariffs that target individual products and countries. Trump has set a baseline tariff of 10% on all imports to the United States,