By Patrick Lozada, NEMA Senior Director, Global Policy
The United States Treasury may be phasing out the penny, but copper’s value extends far beyond the one-cent coin bearing Abraham Lincoln’s profile.
In fact, copper is essential to nearly every part of America’s energy and economic future.
It is found in transformers, transmission and distribution lines, switchgear, motors, data centers, advanced manufacturing facilities, electric vehicles, charging equipment, and the systems that keep homes and businesses operating safely and reliably.
Demand for all of that equipment is growing quickly. NEMA projects U.S. electricity consumption will rise by approximately 55 percent by 2050, driven by data centers, manufacturing, transportation, and broader electrification.
Meeting that demand will require significantly more copper. That makes the current debate over additional copper tariffs especially consequential. Trade policy should help build durable American capacity—not increase the cost of the electrical equipment America needs before sufficient domestic supply exists.
The Trump Administration is right to recognize copper as a strategic material and to pursue policies that strengthen domestic mining, processing, and manufacturing. The United States should produce and refine more copper at home, reduce unnecessary permitting delays, and build supply chains capable of supporting energy security and economic growth.
But sequencing matters.
Domestic Capacity Cannot Expand Overnight
Electrical manufacturers need reliable, affordable access to copper today, even as the United States works to expand domestic production for tomorrow.
New mines and refining facilities require significant capital, skilled workers, regulatory approvals, and years of development. Until domestic capacity can meet demand, manufacturers will continue to depend on refined copper and other critical inputs from trusted trading partners around the world.
Broad or premature tariffs on refined copper could raise manufacturers’ input costs, disrupt established supply chains, and lengthen already significant equipment lead times. Those added costs would ultimately affect the transformers, conductors, switchgear, and other technologies needed to strengthen the grid and support growing electricity demand.
That would work against the Trump Administration’s goals of expanding American manufacturing, accelerating infrastructure development, and achieving energy dominance.
An All-of-the-Above Copper Strategy
As NEMA President and CEO Debra Phillips recently told the House Natural Resources Committee, America needs a balanced approach built around a few priorities.
First, we should expand responsible domestic mining, refining, and processing. Permitting reform, including bipartisan legislation such as the SPEED Act, can help shorten development timelines while preserving appropriate environmental protections.
Second, trade policy should provide manufacturers with continued access to essential inputs that are not yet available domestically at sufficient scale. Targeted, time-limited tariff relief can give U.S. production time to grow without slowing grid, data center, and manufacturing projects already underway.
Third, policymakers should maintain clear and predictable rules for new tariffs on copper-containing products. Any process for expanding tariffs to additional downstream goods should be transparent, targeted, and developed in consultation with industry.
Finally, the United States should continue expanding copper recycling, reclamation, and reprocessing. Copper is highly recyclable, and recycled material already meets a meaningful share of domestic demand.
But recycling alone cannot provide the volume or purity required for every electrical application.
Keeping the Goal in Focus
The objective is not simply to produce more copper. It is to ensure America has the materials required to build a stronger, more reliable, and more secure energy system—and the supply chains that support it.
That means protecting against unfair trade and circumvention while avoiding policies that unintentionally make critical electrical equipment more expensive or difficult to produce.
The Administration, Congress, manufacturers, miners, and processors share an important goal: a resilient domestic copper supply chain capable of supporting America’s long-term growth. NEMA stands ready to help advance that goal.
The penny’s days may be numbered. Copper’s importance to America’s energy future is not.
America cannot achieve energy dominance without building more infrastructure. And America cannot build that infrastructure without copper.