The United States has been completely taken aback this time; recently, the U.S. has hoarded a large amount of copper, driving up copper prices to sky-high levels. China also does not intend to coddle the U.S., making a counter move against it.
People in the United States across the ocean are indeed a bit confused, looking at the mountains of copper piled up in their warehouses, and then seeing the sudden tightening of the silver export gates on this side of the ocean, they probably feel a mix of emotions. This is a typical case of 'I want to engage in a price war with you, but you want to cut off my technological supplies.'
Hoarding copper is not merely speculation, but a precise layout targeting China. As the 'hard currency' of the industrial era, copper is a core material for electricity, infrastructure, and new energy industries, and China is the world's largest copper consumer, accounting for 53% of global consumption in 2024, with a dependency on imported copper exceeding 70%.
The U.S. has accurately identified this point and aims to increase China's industrial production costs by monopolizing copper resources and raising copper prices, thereby slowing down the pace of development in China's new energy and infrastructure sectors.
According to the latest data released by the U.S. Geological Survey in October 2025, from early 2025 to September, the copper reserves in the U.S. official strategic reserve increased dramatically by 68%, reaching 1.2 million tons, setting a record high since 1980.
Private capital has also followed suit in hoarding, with multinational mining giants like Glencore and Freeport shipping copper materials to U.S. storage centers, and the copper inventory at the Port of Houston alone has tripled compared to the same period last year.
Under the frenzied speculation of capital, copper prices on the London Metal Exchange surged from $8,500 per ton at the beginning of 2025 to $14,000 in November, an increase of over 64%, directly refreshing the price peak in nearly 15 years.
The U.S. dares to do this for two main reasons: first, it controls the lifeblood of copper resources in the Western Hemisphere. Among the globally proven copper reserves, countries in the Western Hemisphere, such as Chile and Peru, account for 62%, and the U.S. has firmly bound these resource countries through military presence and economic coercion.
In August 2025, the Trump administration signed a new mineral cooperation agreement with Chile, using 'security guarantees' as leverage to lock in 30% of Chile's copper export share for the next five years.
Second, it aims to replicate the successful experience of the 'oil hegemony' of the last century, coercing China to concede in trade negotiations by controlling core industrial resources.
In July 2025, the U.S. halted the expansion project of the largest domestic copper refining plant, citing 'environmental issues'; in September, it restricted copper exports from Russia and Kazakhstan through sanctions, as these two countries together account for 12% of global copper output.
After a series of operations, the global copper market's supply-demand gap has been artificially widened, allowing the U.S. to profit while waiting for China to come and 'buy copper at high prices.'
However, the U.S. never anticipated that China would not play by the rules, not falling into the anxiety of rising copper prices, but instead accurately targeting the U.S.'s 'fatal point'—silver.
Many people do not know that silver is no longer merely a precious metal but is the 'technological food' of the new energy and semiconductor industries. Especially in the photovoltaic industry, the demand for silver paste in N-type batteries (TOPCon, HJT) has increased by 80%-100% compared to traditional batteries, and the global silver consumption in photovoltaics reached 7,217 tons in 2024, accounting for 19% of the total industrial silver usage.
More critically, the extreme conductivity and chemical stability of silver currently have no perfect substitute materials in high-precision chips, 5G devices, and other fields.
The U.S. aims to wage a 'cost consumption war' through rising copper prices, targeting China's traditional industries and infrastructure; while China's silver counteraction is a 'precise decapitation war,' directly striking at the U.S.'s core technology industries.
Behind this difference is the disparity in the industrial structures of the two countries: although China is a major copper consumer, it is reducing its dependency through technological innovation and resource diversification; while the U.S. technology industry has a rigid demand for silver that cannot be eliminated in the short term.
In the 1980s, the U.S. restricted exports to Japan by monopolizing rare earth resources, directly causing Japan's semiconductor industry to stagnate. Now the U.S. wants to use the same trick to choke China with copper resources, but it overlooks that China has long mastered the countermeasures.
Interestingly, China is not only a major exporter of silver but also the world's largest producer and refiner of silver, with a silver output of 3,600 tons in 2024, accounting for 28% of global total output, while also controlling over 70% of the world's silver refining capacity.
This means that China's control over the silver supply chain is stronger than the U.S.'s control over the copper supply chain.
What further troubles the U.S. is that hoarding copper has begun to backfire on its own economy, as high copper prices have increased domestic infrastructure costs. The $1.2 trillion infrastructure plan launched by the U.S. government in 2025 has faced a budget shortfall of $230 billion due to the rise in copper prices.
At the same time, rising copper prices have also driven up prices in industries such as electricity and home appliances, further exacerbating inflationary pressures in the U.S.
Data from the University of Michigan shows that in November 2025, the expected annual inflation rate in the U.S. reached an initial value of 6.9%, the highest since 1981, with commodity price increases contributing 35% to the inflation pressure.
The current awkward situation in the U.S. is actually self-inflicted; they originally wanted to set a trap for China through rising copper prices, but ended up being caught off guard by China's silver counteraction.
This also confirms a principle: in great power games, relying solely on speculation and monopoly does not work; only by accurately identifying the core needs of the other party can one achieve precise strikes.
The effectiveness of China's counteraction lies in its clear understanding of the 'fatal point' of the U.S. technology industry, achieving maximum deterrence at minimal cost.
The U.S. failed because it indulged in traditional resource hegemony, neglecting the vulnerability of its technology industry; while China's success lies in its precise grasp of the trend of industrial upgrading and mastering the discourse power of key resources.
In the future, as the new energy and technology industries continue to develop, similar resource games will continue to unfold. However, as long as China adheres to technological innovation and open cooperation, it can always maintain the initiative in these games, while those countries attempting to curb China's development through hegemonic means will ultimately suffer the consequences.