Copper set an all-time high of $14,875 per tonne on the London Metal Exchange on 10 September 2026 and, as of 22 September, was rising for a sixth consecutive session. COMEX stood at $6.8484 per pound, roughly $15,100 per tonne, against an LME cash settlement of $14,788 per tonne on 21 September.

That gap — around $310 per tonne, about 2.1% — is the tariff-driven COMEX premium, and it is why a US buyer pays above the headline London price.

The drivers remain supply-side. Global mined output may fall in 2026 for the first time since 2017, with Indonesian and DRC disruption removing roughly 600,000 tonnes from expected annual output. The Democratic Republic of Congo's ban on copper and cobalt concentrate exports remains in force. Freeport's Gresik smelter in Indonesia has been down since a boiler leak on 8 August, with repairs expected to complete by the end of September. The 2026 treatment and refining charge benchmark settled at zero dollars per tonne, against $21 for 2025, and Chinese smelters agreed production cuts of more than 10%.

One correction worth making to the conventional story. LME warehouse stocks are no longer falling. They rose from 234,475 tonnes on 11 September to 255,875 tonnes on 21 September — a 9.1% increase in ten days. A rising price alongside rising exchange stocks is unusual, and it argues that this rally is being driven by US tariff arbitrage and Chinese physical demand rather than by outright global scarcity. The Yangshan premium at $121 per tonne, its highest since November 2022, supports that reading.

Two events knocked the price during the month. On 10 September, Reuters reported that the White House copper tariff plan had stalled; copper fell more than 4% and Freeport dropped 7%. On 14 September, US inflation data raised market bets that the Federal Reserve would raise rates rather than cut them.

Commodity prices are interesting. Producer price indices are what your quotes are built on. These are US Bureau of Labor Statistics series, current to August 2026, released 10 September 2026.

Headline final-demand PPI ran at +5.4% year on year in August. Against that, copper wire at +27.2% and switchgear at +13.8% are not general inflation — they are category-specific pressure, and both accelerated materially in a single month.

The transformer series is the one to watch. Its July reading rose 4.6% in the single month from June, the sharpest monthly move in that series in two years, and the August figure had not been published at the time of writing. Treat it as unavailable rather than flat.

Distributors report a smaller number than the producer indices, because their mix includes categories that have not moved. The NAED and Baird quarterly survey of 23 distributors, published 22 July 2026, put electrical price inflation at +4.6% year over year for the second quarter, with the Midwest highest at +7.8% and the West lowest at +2.6%. Datacomm inflation ran at +3.6%.

Electrical Marketing's Electrical Price Index, for July 2026, breaks it down by category:

That spread is the useful part. If your job is wire-heavy, you are facing double-digit inflation. If it is panelboards and controls, you are facing something close to normal.

LME aluminium stood at $3,268.80 per tonne — about $1.48 per pound — on 22 September 2026, up 23.7% year over year. LME aluminium inventories are near a 36-year low.

Copper is up 49% against aluminium's 24%, and the BLS recorded aluminium mill shapes decreasing in August while copper wire rose 4.2% in the month. The ratio has widened on both the spot and producer-price measures.

That does not make aluminium the right answer on every job — ampacity, termination requirements, conductor sizing and local acceptance all change — but the economics are materially different from six months ago, and it is worth pricing both on large feeder runs before defaulting to copper. Our wire, cords and cables team can quote both.

This is the area where the most inaccurate information circulates, and it changed twice this year. Here is the sequence.

On 20 February 2026, the Supreme Court held 6–3 in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not authorise the President to impose tariffs. The Court expressly declined to address refunds, leaving that to the Court of International Trade. Section 232 tariffs were not affected — they rest on separate statutory authority.

What followed: a 10% replacement tariff under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 was imposed in February, struck down by the Court of International Trade in May, and expired on 23 July 2026 under the statute's 150-day limit. On 24 July 2026, new Section 301 forced-labour tariffs took effect on 60 economies — 10% for countries with forced-labour import prohibitions and 12.5% for those without. China and Vietnam are at 12.5%; Mexico and Canada at 10%.

Goods already subject to Section 232 are exempt from the Section 301 layer, as are USMCA-qualifying imports and certain manufacturing inputs. In practice that means most tariffed electrical material does not stack — but non-232 imported goods now carry a 10–12.5% layer that did not exist before late July.

Proclamation 11032, signed 1 June 2026 and effective 8 June 2026 through 31 December 2027, restructured the steel, aluminium and copper actions into tiers:

Be careful with these rates. Three independent law-firm analyses state 50% for Annex I-A with 25% for Annex I-B. A direct read of the Federal Register text returns different wording, and the annexes themselves are published as images rather than machine-readable text. If your pricing depends on a specific classification, confirm it with your customs broker against the annex — not against a blog, including this one.

Since Proclamation 11021, effective 6 April 2026, Section 232 duties apply to the full customs value of the imported article rather than to its metal content alone. For an importer of finished electrical equipment with modest metal content inside a larger assembly, that is a materially larger duty burden on the same shipment. The prior inclusions process was terminated and replaced with rolling discretionary additions by Commerce and USTR.

The 2025 copper proclamation directed a recommendation by 30 June 2026 on a phased duty on refined copper — 15% from 1 January 2027 and 30% from 1 January 2028 — plus a domestic sales requirement for copper input materials. As of 11 September 2026, Reuters reported the deadline had passed, the Commerce Secretary's recommendation had not been disclosed, and the White House had not decided, weighing affordability ahead of the November midterms.

Do not treat those rates as scheduled. Anyone who was pre-buying copper against a certain 2027 tariff should know that certainty no longer exists.

407 HTSUS codes were added to the steel and aluminium derivative list effective 19 August 2025, and the notice specifically names electrical transformers. The inputs carry it directly: grain-oriented electrical steel at 50%, steel derivative products including cores and laminations at 50%, copper products at 50%. Congressional Research Service analysis notes that 25–30% of US distribution transformers are imported, 50–75% of electrical cores are imported, and 95% of transformer cores use grain-oriented electrical steel. That is the mechanism by which metal tariffs feed straight into transformer pricing.

One honest caveat: do not attribute all of this to tariffs. Distributors and NEMA both report that supplier price increases are being driven by labour, freight and raw materials alongside tariff effects, not by tariffs alone.

Anyone telling you lead times are simply improving, or simply worsening, is compressing a more complicated picture. The table below uses the most recent procurement data available — June 2026 figures published on 1 September 2026 — with baseline figures showing how far from historical norms each category sits.

Separately, Wood Mackenzie's analysis put substation transformers at more than 160 weeks in 2026, against roughly 140 weeks in 2023, with switchgear "closer to one year but elevated relative to historical norms." PwC analysts have described generator step-up and substation transformers reaching four years.

First, much of what circulates as "2026 lead times" is Wood Mackenzie's Q2 2025 survey, published in October 2025 and re-reported through 2026 as though current. That is the source of the widely quoted "power transformers 128 weeks, generator step-up 143–144 weeks, switchgear 44 weeks" set. It is not wrong, but it is a year old. We could not find a published Q2 2026 equivalent.

Second, the published figures for panelboards, switchboards and busway do not agree with each other. One widely cited consolidated index gives switchboards at 32–41 weeks and panelboards at 21–32 weeks; those numbers are identical to a manufacturer lead-time notice dated May 2022. The same index gives pad-mount transformers at 30 weeks, against 40–65 weeks in the June 2026 procurement data above. We are flagging the disagreement rather than picking a side. If a schedule depends on it, get the number in writing from the supplier who will actually ship it.

Not everything is worsening. ABB told investors on 16 July 2026 that lead times were "the same or similar to what they have been before." Wood Mackenzie recorded power transformers down ten weeks quarter on quarter in its Q2 2025 survey while pad-mounts, reclosers and wire and cable were still rising.

The net read for a contractor: engineered medium- and high-voltage equipment is still deteriorating. Standard low-voltage distribution gear is stable. Commodity circuit breakers remain stocked. The risk on most commercial jobs is concentrated in a handful of line items, not spread across the bill of materials.

The US data centre electrical equipment market is projected to grow from around $20 billion in 2026 to $65 billion by 2030, which would take roughly 40% of total US electrical equipment demand — against single digits historically. Data-centre transformer demand alone is forecast to rise from about 1,500 units a year to more than 9,000 by 2030, as US data centre capacity grows from 24 GW to 100 GW.

The order books show it clearly. Eaton's Electrical Americas segment reported organic sales up 18% in the quarter ended 30 June 2026, with a $15.2 billion backlog up 33% year on year and data centre orders up roughly 85%. ABB's Electrification orders rose 58% to $7.2 billion with a book-to-bill of 1.39 and triple-digit data centre order growth. GE Vernova's data centre orders exceeded $5 billion year to date, more than double full-year 2025.

The effect on everyone else is not subtle. The NAED and Baird survey reported in July 2026 that data centres are taking manufacturing capacity on conduit and raceway and power distribution equipment, with transformers called "a major issue" outright. That is the finding that should change how you buy: the squeeze has moved from engineered, long-lead assemblies into ordinary stocked material.

Two appeared this month, and they are worth watching rather than acting on. The EIA's Short-Term Energy Outlook, released 9 September 2026, noted a pause in new data centre projects in Texas while still forecasting record US generation of 4,368 billion kWh in 2026. And NEMA's Electroindustry Business Confidence Index, published 16 September, showed current conditions improving to 65.8 while the forward-looking index fell from 73.9 to 68.4, with NEMA noting "some resistance to data center construction" in certain markets.

Manufacturers are busy now and less confident about the next six months. That is the first divergence of its kind this cycle.

Hitachi Energy's Mississippi announcement on 15 September 2026 is its largest-ever US investment, at 700-plus jobs, and part of a $1.5 billion US programme. None of it helps you this year. Congressional Research Service analysis estimates three to five years before new capacity relieves the shortage.

Five things change outcomes at the project level.

• Engage a supplier at design stage, not procurement stage. Engineered equipment is set by the one-line long before a purchase order exists. A supplier brought in at procurement inherits whatever the market has left.
• Get lead times stated in writing, per line item. "In stock" and "available" are not dates. Ask which lines are the schedule risk and get the answer on the quote, not in a phone call.
• Check quote validity periods. In a market moving this fast, a 30-day quote and a 7-day quote are different commercial products. Know which one you are holding, and note that the Federal Reserve narrative has flipped toward rate rises — the financing cost behind any deferred-purchase decision has changed.
• Extend the planning horizon on commodity material. The distributor reports are specifically about conduit, raceway, wire and distribution equipment — the categories most people assume are always available.
• Price aluminium alongside copper on large feeders. The ratio has widened enough this year that the comparison is worth redoing on jobs where it was dismissed six months ago.