The copper inventories at the US COMEX exchange have surged to 400,000 tons, accounting for 62% of the visible inventories across the world's three major futures exchanges—behind these figures lies a covert battle between port warehouses and trading screens. As the lifeblood of industry, the extreme imbalance in copper inventory distribution is profoundly rewriting the gameplay of the global copper market.

Why can the US "absorb" over 60% of exchange inventories? Is it a coincidence? No. Last year, the US initiated a Section 232 trade investigation into copper. Once the expectation of tariffs increased, traders immediately started shipping copper to US ports. Even more aggressive was the copper price premium between COMEX and an international futures exchange, which allowed large traders to sniff out arbitrage opportunities—large quantities of copper from Asia and Europe were redirected to the US. The numbers speak volumes: US copper imports skyrocketed from 70,000 tons to 500,000 tons per month.

What are the consequences of this unidirectional inventory accumulation? The global copper market has been sharply divided. On the US side, inventories are piling up, and spot prices are being heavily suppressed; meanwhile, in the Eurasian markets, supply suddenly becomes tight, pushing regional premiums sky-high. Under the pressure of cross-market arbitrage and supply-demand mismatches, copper prices fluctuate wildly.

The logic behind this covert battle is quite clear. For the US, controlling copper inventories equals controlling the pricing power of bulk commodities, which can lock in costs for strategic industries like new energy and infrastructure; for traders, relocating inventories is a pursuit of profit, though it also intensifies short-term market volatility; for manufacturing powers that rely on copper imports, the concentration of inventories has increased supply chain risks, forcing them to accelerate their efforts to develop copper mining resources and build inventories. This is the true game behind the scenes.