Post
Topic
Board Economics
Topic OP
Minerals, Money, and Power
by
slapper
on 06/07/2025, 19:24:00 UTC
Every country wants green tech, electric cars, and cheap gadgets. But nearly all of this depends on minerals like lithium, nickel, copper. And China controls most of it. They buy mines everywhere, use government money to outbid others, and even let their companies lose money if it means locking up supplies for the future. They even run the factories that turn raw minerals into finished products

Fact: China processes 90%+ of the worlds rare earths (69% in mining production). For cobalt, lithium, copper, it is frequently more than half

Now Western countries (US, Europe, Australia, etc.) are worried. They talk about “friendship” and “safe supply chains”, but what are they really doing? Mostly, they throw money at big companies or make new trade groups, but still depend on China’s factories and technology

At the same time, local people in Africa, Asia, and South America are tired of outsiders (East or West) controlling their resources. Sometimes they just take over mines and switch partners

The world is rushing for more minerals, but we might just repeat old mistakes: dependency, pollution, debt, broken promises. Only this time, it’s not just oil, but everything from phone batteries to wind turbines