It's categorically untrue that funding/investment into current & new projects won't happen until there is significant change in sentiment/prices. I'm not sure if you're ignoring it or just missed it, but Kuvimba Mining House, a Zimbabwean state-owned miner, recently secured a US$310m investment from a consortium of British and Chinese investors to build a lithium concentrator at the Sandawana mine in Zimbabwe. Note that this happened less than two weeks ago, while prices are at record lows.
AGY has been courting a similar investment amount for a long time, but they just haven't been able to get a deal done, while others have. It's not affecting all companies, just the one's that aren't attractive to prospective investors.
