On the afternoon of May 12, the day after the conclusion of the Sino-US Geneva Economic and Trade Talks, both sides issued the "Joint Statement on the Sino-US Geneva Economic and Trade Talks", reaching a consensus to mutually suspend the 24% tariffs for 90 days while maintaining the 10% tariffs. Secondly, they simultaneously revoked two executive orders imposing additional tariffs, including Executive Order 14259 and Executive Order 14266 signed by the Trump administration on April 8 and 9, respectively. China also announced in response the cancellation of the additional tax measures against the US, as outlined in Announcement No. 5 and No. 6 of 2025 by the Customs Tariff Commission, which means the cancellation of the 91% additional tariffs imposed as a countermeasure on US goods. With the easing of Sino-US tariff policies, how has the export market for copper cathode rods responded? Has there been a rush in exports? Below is a detailed analysis:

According to SMM, the operating rate of copper cathode rod enterprises in April was 73.85%, up 4.2 percentage points MoM and 2.41 percentage points higher than the expected value. The operating rate of copper cathode rod enterprises increased by 4.89 percentage points YoY in April. Among them, the operating rate of large enterprises was 83.67%, that of medium-sized enterprises was 59.28%, and that of small enterprises was 56.61%.