Copper snapped back a bit this week, which caught some attention. Copper prices climbed over 1% and settled around $4.61 per pound by late Thursday. That’s a decent recovery from where things stood earlier in August, when copper drifted under $4.55. It’s still well below this year’s peak, but not scraping the bottom either.

There are a few things at play. The clearest piece seems to be sentiment. Traders have been feeling slightly better about the outlook for global manufacturing, especially with some easing in U.S.–China trade rhetoric. Nothing major has changed, but the absence of new escalations has helped. Copper tends to be quick to respond to these kinds of shifts.

On the supply side, disruptions haven’t gone away. Some major mining operations, especially in Africa, are still dealing with delays and production issues. That’s kept a bit of pressure under the market, especially since inventories haven’t bounced back much either.

Then there’s the political layer. The U.S. tariffs on copper imports haven’t fully settled, but there was some relief earlier this month when cathode copper got carved out of the latest round. That probably helped calm nerves in a few key sectors.

Bigger picture, copper still acts as a soft proxy for the economy. When it firms up like this, even modestly, it usually reflects a sense that industrial demand isn’t falling apart. Maybe it’s not charging ahead, but it’s not rolling over either.