Even if Trump is big on oil, he can't really stop the automakers...

Sadly I think it's taken this long because of how difficult it is to create policy in the western world. Unfortunately, China is able to align its industries much quicker essentially under a dictatorship, whereas the west is more complex with a lot of back and forward between legislators, different parties, lobbyist groups, unions etc. This naturally gives China a first mover advantage.

The west is already starting to get past this and regain control of the EV industry, but what we need to see is:

• Establish an Aussie Inflation Reduction Act to incentives domestic production of renewable technologies.
• Stronger Western alliances to secure long-term demand across allied nations and with that, long-term off-take agreements.
• Invest in local processing plants to capitalise on profits further down the supply chain, adding value to our allied customers instead of China.
• Diversify export markets to reduce risk associated with geopolitical issues and establish trade agreements with European Union and other emerging economies.
• Build strategic reserves similar to oil, allowing us to essentially control the supply available to the market and create a buffer for future supply chain disruptions. Given Australia supplies the majority of lithium in the world this would enable us to strengthen our position.

Agree with you that they have plenty more expansion within their local domestic market, but my logic was more so that they're already captured the majority of their market now so it would be diminishing returns going forward, essentially China cannot supply their market at the same rate is has currently been. But I'm not 100% on this I could be wrong here. But one thing is for sure is that they are looking to expand more into the western markets where they have less control over... also good points on Trump, let's see how it plays out. I do hope Tesla introducers a lower cost EV, perhaps with their new refinery one might on the way? It would be a game changer. Also, car manufacturers will still produce more and more EVs despite whatever oil deals Trump has.

Even if Trump is big on oil, he can't really stop the automakers from producing EVs which seems to be the way things are going.

And yes, Trump will want to at least protect domestic manufacturing even if they are EV's, bringing jobs "back to America" has always been something he's passionate about. Especially if those jobs are being lost to China.

I'm with you on avoiding Chinese products where possible.

I can't see Australia getting involved with manufacturing at this stage because our population is too small to support the sales, this was a good question raised during the conference. They suggested we focus on what we do best, mining and perhaps mid-stream processing, selling to allied western nations who have a much larger market for sales.