The trade war is already there, especially with all the import...

The trade war is already there, especially with all the import duties taking place back and forth. For example western import duties on EVs, Chinese import duties on agricultural products.

But instead of slowing down, it is getting more severe. I work 5 km away from ASML. They were told last year to stop selling new chip manufacturing equipment to China, now they (under pressure of the US) are looking into stop selling machines to China and even stopping the maintenance of machines.

The trade war eventually leads to a currency war if we are not able to slow down and reverse the export restrictions/import duties back and forth. Some even say the currency war is already there, as there is speculation China is subsidizing ~30% of its businesses to stay afloat.

If China delivers the world EVs, a lot of car manufacturers in the west are going out of business and thats one of the reasons I think the US came up with the critical mineral list.

The Chinese can over invest in lithium production, but if they are even subsidizing mines and subsidizing new mines in Africa for example this can lead to closure of mines in Australia.

The world has changed quite a lot since the last downturn in lithium.