“For too long we have ignored our own backyard and allowed Russia, China and Iran, America’s adversaries, to make major inroads into our region,” a member of the US House of Representatives said in that context. ., the Republican Carlos Giménez.
The head of the US Southern Command, Laura Richardson, She complained this Wednesday of other countries extracting resources from Latin America and, in particular, lithium in the so-called ‘lithium triangle’.
During his speech before the Committee on Armed Services of the House of Representatives, Richardson highlighted the importance of the Latin American region for Washington. “This region is full of resources and I am concerned about the malign activity of our adversaries taking advantage of it, pretending they are investing when in fact they are extracting,” she said.
In this context, he stressed that the so-called ‘lithium triangle’ accumulates “60% of the world’s lithium”. “Argentina, Bolivia and Chile have it and (our adversaries) are taking resources from these countries and their people, who are trying to produce, from these democracies who are trying to contribute to their people,” he added.
Meanwhile, a member of the US House of Representatives, Carlos Gimenez, asked what percentage of this amount of lithium “is actually controlled by China.” “When you talk to the US ambassadors in Chile and Argentina and the companies that are there, the aggressiveness of China and the running game they have with lithium is very advanced and very aggressive,” Richardson responded.
“Fighting the People’s Republic of China in South America, I think (China) is our biggest threat,” Giménez said in this regard. “It’s just going to be missing the military, although you all do a great job in partnership, and it’s actually an economic thing, and I think for too long we’ve ignored our own backyard and allowed Russia, China and Iran, adversaries of United States, make big inroads into our region,” he concluded.
