Lithium Wars?

[sixGuns]

I figured a consolidation/update was in order. Notwithstanding the lithium, Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile seem content to nationalize (Mexico has already done so), not use the dollar and are very friendly with China. My only question is... boots on the ground when? I think I need to update my bingo card.

Latin America is the region of the world with the largest amount of lithium. Its so-called Lithium Triangle will inevitably become the nexus for the coveted mineral, which is often referred to as “white gold.” The Lithium Triangle is a lithium-rich region in the Andean southwest corner of South America, spanning the borders of Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile and forming a geographic triangle of lithium resources underneath their salt flats. Approximately 58 percent of the world’s lithium resources are found in these three countries, according to the 2021 USGS Mineral Commodity Summary.

https://brazilreports.com/brazils-l...iticizes-u-s-dollars-dominance-globally/4565/

https://apnews.com/article/chile-li...ontrol-boric-36aa76e08f211579e17f2df386143b9a

 

[1DOWN4UP]

We left 1 trillion dollars worth of lithium behind in Afghanistan for the Taliban to sell to China. Another reason to question Pedojoes being compromised?

 

[Mgderf]

Under Argentina, Bolivia, and Chili's salt flats, huh?
Have to wonder what might be under ours...

 

[Libertarian01]

The reasons no one is going to abandon the dollar, at least before we're all dead.



Regards,

Doug

 

[Ark]

We don't really care about lithium, because the goal isn't for everyone to get electric cars. The goal is for you to not have a car anymore. The ruling class doesn't care if the lithium in a Tesla balloons to $450,000 They can afford it. You ride the bus as they race past you on empty streets.

Biden and Co have known the entire time that EVs are a pipe dream. It's just a false promise to mollify you while they take away your transportation independence forever.

 

[Twangbanger]

We don't really care about lithium, because the goal isn't for everyone to get electric cars. The goal is for you to not have a car anymore. The ruling class doesn't care if the lithium in a Tesla balloons to $450,000 They can afford it. You ride the bus as they race past you on empty streets.

Biden and Co have known the entire time that EVs are a pipe dream. It's just a false promise to mollify you while they take away your transportation independence forever.

"All my staffers in Alexandria, VA ride the transit train into DC to work, and love it - why can't you?"

Another part of the problem, and we see this with oil, uranium, minerals, you name it...is the American Capitalist System treats everything - and I do mean everthing - as a commodity. Everything is a blinking line on a futures trading board, with prices set by the market. Nothing is strategic. The Milton Friedman Economy has no provision for assigning a value to something, outside of its last trade and 52-week trend. Grampaw Milt lived in a simple world where Communists were considered bad, and would therefore be shunned, and not dealt with. When he received his Nobel Prize, some of the very people who were working the reigns to get China into the WTO, and therefore secure the ultimate defeat of everything he believed in, were probably sitting in the audience.

China treats all sorts of things as strategic. They have no intention of following the western market model, because their goal is not to play the market. Their goal is to _be_ the market. They try to employ the DeBeers Diamond Cartel business model, on everything else besides diamonds. A new deposit of something valuable gets discovered, somewhere? Descend on that country's leaders with enough suitcases of cash to make their grandkids US millionaires, in exchange for the rights to _all_ of it.

All sorts of geopolitical options become available to you, when you control where the next paycheck of a significant enough number of people is coming from.

 

[cobber]

Under Argentina, Bolivia, and Chili's salt flats, huh?
Have to wonder what might be under ours...

Probably ample supplies of oil and natural gas that would make is energy independent?

 

[manifest destiny]

China treats all sorts of things as strategic. They have no intention of following the western market model, because their goal is not to play the market. Their goal is to _be_ the market. They try to employ the DeBeers Diamond Cartel business model, on everything else besides diamonds. A new deposit of something valuable gets discovered, somewhere? Descend on that country's leaders with enough suitcases of cash to make their grandkids US millionaires, in exchange for the rights to _all_ of it.

All sorts of geopolitical options become available to you, when you control where the next paycheck of a significant enough number of people is coming from.

This is a great take. The U.S. delivers bombs from above. China delivers suitcases full of money. Who's winning the hearts and minds (and resources) of other countries, between those two strategies? We spent trillions occupying and bombing Afghanistan, and still they don't want to be our friends. Go figure.

 

[Ark]

This is a great take. The U.S. delivers bombs from above. China delivers suitcases full of money. Who's winning the hearts and minds (and resources) of other countries, between those two strategies? We spent trillions occupying and bombing Afghanistan, and still they don't want to be our friends. Go figure.

We'll see it this century. Some damn fools will compromise a major Chinese investment and provoke the sharp end of the stick. The arc of empires is timeless.

 

[Remington 90T]

Under Argentina, Bolivia, and Chili's salt flats, huh?
Have to wonder what might be under ours...

We have it also, but our Mining regulations won't allow it. So, our green energy policy is to keep U.S. green and allow the rest of the third world countries to increase mining tenfold with no environmental over site. Thats the dirty little secret about green energy policy.

 

[Libertarian01]

China is trying to buy the world, but that doesn't hold in the long run without the ability to collect, and collect it cannot.

The farthest most Chinese naval vessels can go is about 1,000 miles under noncombat conditions. When any country in Africa or South America decides not to pay them back, or honor their agreement, what's China going to do? Send diplomats saying, "No. We really mean it?" Because that's all China CAN do!

If the United States "really means it" we can, and will, park a super carrier off their coast, then send in diplomats. China cannot do that. China cannot project power. So when push comes to shove and the USA and China start to get heated, the US will "ask" China's friends to stop delivering X commodity. And that country will stop. Now, they may well try to and succeed in negotiating a new deal with the US, but they understand the difference between the most powerful blue water navy on earth and, well, China with a coastal defense force.

Southeast Asia could well have problems with China, only because they are within their reach, but that's about it. Even then, those problems would be temporary as China has no competency. Anyone who has studied the basics of military power understands the immeasurable value of military tradition. China has no naval tradition. Japan? They've defeated the Chinese. They've defeated the Russians. And they, as an island with limited resources gave us a good run for our money. Plus Japan has a blue water navy that can reach out far beyond SE Asia and touch someone if it wanted to.

There was somewhat of a parallel between France and England around the 18th century. France started the very first naval college in the world. They actually studied naval conflict and scientifically designed military vessels. Yet, when conflict with Great Britain occurred France still lost. That was because for the French naval combat was theoretical but for the British they had officers that actually knew how to run a ship and use solid tactics.

My premise isn't that China does not have what it has today. Currently they do. My premise is that we can take it from them whenever we want to, so strategically China's current hold means squat in a future conflict. China has and is a paper tiger.

Regards,

Doug