Europe should help its copper smelters by limiting the "huge" supply of copper scrap to China, German Economy Minister Katerina Reiche said on Monday. This statement may open a new front in the trade disputes between Brussels and Beijing, as reported by the Bloomberg news agency.
"The Chinese are buying up huge volumes of copper scrap on the market. Large copper smelters in Germany no longer receive the raw materials they need," said Katerina Reiche at an event organized by Siemens Energy AG in Berlin.
Concerns about the supply of raw materials to China indicate the growing politicization of global supplies of raw materials, which has intensified in the face of the protectionist policy of US President Donald Trump. However, any steps by the European Union to limit supplies will only exacerbate trade tensions, which have already strained relations between Brussels and Beijing.
Katerina Reiche said that it is necessary to develop a pan-European policy to ensure that China will not be able to simply offer a higher price than European steel mills for the removal of scrap metal from the region, without specifying what restrictions may be imposed. This issue should be part of a broader concept of the sustainability of European economies, the German official said.
Over the past five years, China has increased purchases of copper scrap as Chinese steel mills have increased production and copper ore supplies have risen in price. However, this year there are new trends: Beijing is seeking to purchase copper scrap in many other countries after exports from the United States, previously its largest supplier, have sharply declined. In the first seven months of this year, China imported about 204,000 tons of copper scrap from EU countries, which is 3.5% more than a year earlier. However, supplies from the EU make up only a small part, about 15%, of China's total imports.