The article analyzes the apparent consumption of copper in the United States, as well as the accumulated stocks of copper in the composition of finished goods in the economy for the period from 1900 to 2017. The analysis of apparent copper consumption is supplemented by an estimate of foreign trade in copper as part of finished goods. This allows to get a more objective assessment of the real US copper consumption from 1995 to 2017. It is shown that in the US economy it does not decrease with the transition to postindustrial development models; there is a steady increase in copper reserves in finished products.