While there is speculation about expanded USA FTA agreements, FTA agreements normally take much longer than expected and can grind to a halt if agricultural interests are unable to be resolved. Its taken NZ decades to secure some of the FTA agreements they have secured and aren't on the list below. I'd imagine there would be massive pushback on a FTA with Brazil from the American farming community and that could stall things for 10-20 years or more.
USA already has FTA's with the majority of world lithium supply (Canada, Chile and Australia) so these countries can supply into the USA and gain IRA benefits. There would be no reason to do a FTA with Brazil so that there is lithium sources - Canada, Chile and Australia already cover that. The problem the USA has is not sources of supply, ships from Australia can do that, the problem is conversion capacity to hydroxide.
By the time LRS is in production, the critical minerals requirement for the IRA $3,750 per EV credit will be well on the way to being 80%. If companies producing EV's for the USA market need to source all the minerals within that 80% requirement, they probably need FTA lithium because Nickel, Cobalt and Graphite (for an NMC style battery) are going to consume the full 20% available.
If PLS were intent on a low risk pathway to expanding USA supply via FTA agreements, they should have bought brine assets in Chile or spodumene assets in Canada/Australia. I'd see it as more likely that in the 2020's Core's Spod would find its way into the US market than LRS's Spod.
CXO Price at posting:
9.3¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
