Updates prices, potential impact on China, dollar moves

By Julian Luk

London Nov 6 (Reuters) -Copper prices tumbled on Wednesday as victory for Republican Donald Trump in the U.S. presidential election spurred concerns that major electrification initiatives would be rolled back, dampening demand for the highly conductive metal.

Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange (LME) CMCU3 was down 3% to $9,445.5 per metric ton at 1157 GMT, its lowest in 20 days.

It fell through the 21-day, 50-day and 100-day moving averages, and was the worst performer of the base metals complex.

The copper market is pricing in the long-term direction of Trump's policies, a trader said.

Trump said he would "rescind all unspent funds" under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the Biden-Harris administration's signature climate law to decouple the global supply chain from China.

The IRA includes hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies for electric vehicles, solar and wind energy, and increasing production of strategic minerals. It was seen as an incentive boost for investments in lithium, copper and nickel outside China.

A Trump victory could also derail U.S. policy in resource-rich Africa. Biden's administration planned to nearly double its financial commitments in the copper belt of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the world's second biggest copper producer.

To encourage local manufacturing, the president-elect has also threatened to add a 60% blanket tariff on U.S. imports of Chinese goods. That could quicken factory relocation out of China, which smelts almost half of the world's copper.

"If everything got derailed, it's time for us to re-evaluate the copper demand-supply expectations," the trader said.

For other metals, LME aluminium CMAL3 dropped 1.5% to $2,620 a ton, nickel CMNI3 dropped 0.3% to $16,080, zinc CMZN3 lost 2.8% to $3,018, lead CMPB3 rose 0.1% to $2,030, and tin CMSN3 fell 2.2% to $31,650.

Pressuring metal prices was a stronger dollar. The currency =USD was set for its biggest one-day rise since March 2023 as investors returned to so-called "Trump trades", making dollar-priced metals more expensive for other currency holders.

Reporting by Julian Luk; Editing by Sharon Singleton and Mark Potter

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