This thing is about to pop, page-23

"China may make it cheaper/ but only for themselves." You mean like they only made nickel cheaper for themselves?

American factory users of lithium will demand access to the lowest price raw material - lithium on the global market.
As will consumers ultimately demand access to the cheapest batteries.
In a market economy this is the way things are supposed to work.
Nickel is the example in play today. Iron ore will be the example to quote next year. And I cannot see how lithium can avoid the same fate going forward.
In fact perhaps the market may already see this and this might explains the 80%+ drop in price.

As a holder I hope I am wrong but I like to post what I think is the state of play not what I want it to be. The latter is surely ramping up or down.