America's race to lock down copper has turned a once-sleepy industrial metal into a frontline asset of economic and geopolitical strategy. Prices are surging, domestic premiums are distorting global benchmarks, and a metal best known for wiring and plumbing is suddenly a proxy for how the United States plans to build, electrify, and defend its economy. What looks like a simple price spike is really a collision of forces: aggressive U.S. stockpiling, a clean energy buildout that runs on copper, fragile global supply chains, and new tariff threats from Washington. I see a market that is no longer just reacting to mines ... (full story)