Another reason is relatively lax environmental laws for rare earth production and electronics manufacturing. Interestingly, to your point, fracking and other h

Another reason is relatively lax environmental laws for rare earth production and electronics manufacturing. Interestingly, to your point, fracking and other hydrocarbon production techniques, are at least as bad if not worse but seem to get a relatively free pass. That said the advent of a sodium ion technology that’s practical at scale opens the door for competition by decoupling rare earth production from battery costs. Local rare earth saves on tariffs and transportation costs. Sodium earth makes it a raw technological affair and the west is still leading in technological innovation. Manufacturing is already globally spread out for battery production, so raw cost of labor must not be a primary component of cost.