This is largely true. China has tremendous soft and hard power,...

This is largely true. China has tremendous soft and hard power, despite being in a complete state of economic catastrophe. But, if you think economic catastrophe will prevent a country from having a massive influence on global economics, politics, etc, just look at the USA over the last couple of decades!

China is absolute unbridled evil, it's not even particularly smart or strategic, but that doesn't stop it from being highly effective, and indeed, it wants lower lithium prices.

The USA can introduce tariffs to whatever extent it wants, but that's really not going to do much; the USA isn't the powerhouse it once was, it's not the world's only or main consumer of EVs, there are ways around tariffs, and in any case, Trump is all about 'drill baby, drill!', not 'let's get all the Americans to drive EVs and push up the lithium price'.

Some people seem to think it somehow doesn't matter than AGY has collapsed because it is due to the lithium price. Even if this was mostly true rather than just partly true, it would still... be the case. People also seem to think that just because China is unbridled evil, it doesn't matter that the price is being lowered because of China... another bizarre concept.

China is indeed working very hard to keep the lithium price down, below what it should be. It is absolutely 0bsessed with controlling this market, even if it requires harming its own economy to do so. That might be evil, it may even be stupid, but it still is what it is.