Very much agree
@anatol about the high level automation and robotics largely cancelling out any wage cost advantages these days. I commented the same recently when another poster pulled out the old excuse of Australia being unable to compete with China and others because of our higher wage costs - this just doesn't matter or apply any longer if one thinks about it.
And at the time, I mirrored your comments about the common sense of Western countries getting much more involved in battery manufacture as an obvious strategy. The recent USA Defence Dept announcement black-listing CATL shows that this thinking is the obvious future direction for the Western powers.
So yes, there are very interesting times ahead, especially for LTR and its carefully chosen trading partners, to add value and to cement their supply chain advantages. This might even become clearer after TO's Quarterly on Jan 21, but let's not rush him and the LTR team too much so soon in 2025!
(20min delay)