U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Saturday toured U.S. lithium producer Albemarle in northern Chile, saying that expanded U.S.-Chilean ties would profit each international locations, enhance vitality safety and assist obtain key local weather targets.
Yellen, wrapping up her go to to Chile after conferences with President Gabriel Boric and Financial system Minister Mario Marcel in Santiago on Friday, mentioned rising demand for clear vitality might generate someUSD 3 trillion in international funding alternatives via 2050.
Yellen’s go to to Chile is a part of a broader push by the Biden administration to diversify U.S. provide chains and cut back overdependence on China for essential minerals and different items by bolstering ties with key allies and companions resembling Chile.
Washington has a robust curiosity in Chile because the world’s largest producer of copper and the second largest producer of lithium, each elements wanted in batteries for electrical automobiles and different applied sciences as a part of the inexperienced transition.
“Our ties with Chile improve our vitality safety at dwelling, create financial alternative in each our international locations, and produce us all nearer to reaching our local weather targets,” Yellen mentioned in remarks ready for the go to.
She informed reporters on Friday that the U.S. needed to increase its personal commerce flows with Chile, not dissuade it from buying and selling with China, its greatest buying and selling companion, including, “It isn’t a contest.”
Yellen mentioned Chile’s lead manufacturing function in copper was essential, noting that demand is projected to double by 2035, for the reason that metallic is required for all the pieces from electrical automobiles to offshore wind generators and transmission networks.
With 30% of worldwide market share and the biggest lithium reserves, Chile can also be the world’s second greatest producer of lithium, which is anticipated to see a tripling of demand by 2030 given its key function in vitality storage, resembling for EV batteries.
Chile’s 20-year-old free commerce settlement with the USA means essential minerals from Chile assist automobiles qualify for clear automobile tax credit below the Inflation Discount Act, which Yellen mentioned would increase industries in each international locations.
She mentioned Albemarle’s funding in Chile confirmed the advantage of expanded ties, noting the North Carolina-based agency had two websites in Chile that make use of 1,000 folks – a manufacturing website in Salar de Atacama and a conversion plant in La Negra.
There could be shifts within the medium- to long-term because the U.S. ramps up lithium manufacturing in the USA, Yellen mentioned, citing a deliberate Albemarle lithium mine attributable to open in North Carolina by 2030 and a separate mine and processing facility in Nevada that broke floor one 12 months in the past.
Yellen hailed what she referred to as Chile’s personal formidable local weather agenda, together with its inexperienced grid, with 60% of its energy coming from zero-carbon sources, and its issuance of the world’s first sovereign sustainability-linked bond.
Chile additionally goals to achieve 100% in EV gross sales by 2035 and will nicely prepared the ground in inexperienced hydrogen, with greater than 40 inexperienced hydrogen initiatives underway.
“All of this makes Chile precisely the sort of companion we’d like within the transition to scrub vitality,” Yellen mentioned.
