The United States has been completely caught off guard this time. Recently, the U.S. has accumulated a large stockpile of copper, driving copper prices to new heights. China also has no intention of letting the U.S. have its way and has countered with a strategic move. Americans across the ocean are now somewhat bewildered, looking at mountains of copper in their warehouses and then at the suddenly tightened silver export restrictions on the other side of the ocean, likely feeling a complex mix of emotions. This is a classic case of "I want to engage in a price war with you, but you want to cut off my technological supply."

The stockpiling of copper is not merely speculative; it is a targeted strategic move against China. As a "hard currency" in the industrial era, copper is a core material for electricity, infrastructure, and new energy industries. China is the world's largest copper consumer, accounting for 53% of global consumption in 2024, with over 70% of its copper imports relying on foreign sources.

The U.S. has clearly seen this opportunity and aims to monopolize copper resources and inflate copper prices to increase China's industrial production costs, thereby slowing down China's new energy and infrastructure development.

According to the latest data released by the U.S. Geological Survey in October 2025, from the beginning of 2025 to September, the U.S. strategic reserves of copper surged by 68%, reaching 1.2 million tons, the highest level since 1980.

Private capital is also following suit, with multinational mining giants like Glencore and Freeport shipping copper to U.S. storage centers. The copper inventory at Houston port alone has tripled compared to the same period last year.

Under the frenzy of capital speculation, copper prices on the London Metal Exchange soared from $8,500 per ton at the start of 2025 to $14,000 in November, an increase of over 64%, hitting a 15-year high.

The reason the U.S. dares to do this is backed by two main factors: first, control over the vital copper resources in the Western Hemisphere. Among the proven global copper reserves, countries like Chile and Peru account for 62%. The U.S., through military presence and economic pressure, has tightly linked these resource-rich countries.

In August 2025, the Trump administration signed a new mineral cooperation agreement with Chile, using "security guarantees" as leverage to secure 30% of Chile's future copper exports for the next five years.

Second, the U.S. aims to replicate the success of the "oil hegemony" of the last century by controlling core industrial resources and forcing China to make concessions in trade negotiations.

In July 2025, the U.S. halted the expansion of its largest domestic copper refining plant citing "environmental concerns"; in September, it imposed sanctions restricting copper exports from Russia and Kazakhstan, which together account for 12% of global copper production.

These actions artificially widened the global copper supply-demand gap, allowing the U.S. to profit from the situation while waiting for China to pay high prices for copper.

However, the U.S. did not anticipate that China would not follow conventional logic. Instead of succumbing to copper price hikes, China has precisely targeted the U.S.'s "vital point"—silver.

Many people are unaware that silver is no longer just a precious metal; it has become a "technological staple" for the new energy and semiconductor industries. Especially in photovoltaic (solar) industries, N-type cells (TOPCon, HJT) require 80%-100% more silver paste than traditional cells. In 2024, the global silver consumption for photovoltaics reached 7,217 tons, accounting for 19% of total industrial silver use.

More critically, silver's exceptional electrical conductivity and chemical stability mean that, in high-precision chips, 5G equipment, and other fields, there are no perfect substitutes yet.

The U.S. hopes to wage a "cost exhaustion war" by driving up copper prices, targeting China's traditional industries and infrastructure. Meanwhile, China's counterattack with silver is a "precise decapitation strike," directly hitting the core of U.S. high-tech industries.

Behind this difference are the contrasting industrial structures of the two countries: China, although a major copper consumer, is reducing its dependence through technological innovation and resource diversification; whereas the U.S. has a rigid demand for silver in its tech industries that cannot be eliminated in the short term.

In the 1980s, the U.S. monopolized rare earth resources and restricted exports to Japan, causing Japan's semiconductor industry to stagnate. Now, the U.S. seeks to repeat this tactic by using copper resources to choke China, but it overlooks the fact that China has already gained the upper hand with countermeasures.

Even more interestingly, China is not only a major exporter of silver but also the world's largest producer and refiner. In 2024, China's silver output reached 3,600 tons, accounting for 28% of the global total, and it controls over 70% of the world's silver refining capacity.

This means China's control over the silver supply chain is even stronger than the U.S.'s control over copper.

What makes the U.S. even more worried is that stockpiling copper has begun to backfire on its own economy. The high copper prices have driven up domestic infrastructure costs. The U.S. government's $1.2 trillion infrastructure plan in 2025 saw its budget gap increase by $230 billion due to rising copper prices.

Additionally, the surge in copper prices has pushed up prices in electricity, home appliances, and other sectors, further intensifying inflationary pressures in the U.S.

Data from the University of Michigan shows that in November 2025, the U.S. one-year inflation expectation hit 6.9%, a new high since 1981, with commodity price increases contributing 35% to inflationary pressure.

The current awkward situation in the U.S. is actually self-inflicted. It initially aimed to trap China with rising copper prices but was caught off guard by China's countermeasure with silver.

This confirms a fundamental principle: in great power competition, relying solely on speculation and monopolies is ineffective. Only by accurately targeting the core needs of the opponent can one achieve precise strikes.

The reason China's counterattack is effective lies in its clear understanding of the U.S. tech industry's "vital point," achieving maximum deterrence with minimal cost.

The U.S. failed because it was obsessed with traditional resource hegemony and ignored the fragility of its tech industries. China's success, on the other hand, stems from accurately grasping industry upgrade trends and controlling key resource discourse rights.

In the future, as new energy and tech industries continue to develop, similar resource battles will keep unfolding. But as long as China persists in technological innovation and open cooperation, it will always maintain the initiative in these competitions. Countries attempting to use hegemonic means to curb China's development will ultimately suffer their own consequences.