I don’t really understand this argument. Sure battery minerals come from unpleasant countries.
But where does oil come from? It has a 100 year history of making medieval despots rich and powerful. Is money going to some warlord in the DRC worse than funding the House of Saud?
With new extraction technologies oil has a recent history of making patriotic Americans rich until we “elected (uh huh)” Joe Biden.
Read carefully. The US is (or was under Trump) the world's largest oil producer. This is not illogical, since we also have the greatest known reserves. Only a bad case of Bidenitis has us buying oil anywhere else--especially from sheiks and sh*ts.
“But where does oil come from? It has a 100 year history of making medieval despots rich and powerful. Is money going to some warlord in the DRC worse than funding the House of Saud?”
The difference is “concentrations”. Oil is found about everywhere compared to Rare Earth minerals. Hence the label “Rare Earth”.
And who controls these operations.