Lithium’s Future Hinges on Sovereign Decisions, Not on JP Morgan’s Report

The latest JP Morgan report highlights how international financial players seek to shape sovereign regulatory processes, pressuring China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) over the Codelco-SQM agreement.

Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan, though they share historical roots in the former J. P. Morgan & Co., have evolved along distinct institutional paths within the global financial system. This split also reflects how U.S. financial power has diversified and expanded its influence across sectors and regions worldwide. However, both institutions share a pattern: attempting to sway the sovereign decisions of developing nations, particularly in strategic sectors such as energy, natural resources, and technological infrastructure.

In this context, JP Morgan has taken an interventionist stance on a matter that is fundamentally a technical issue for China’s state authorities. It involves regulating a market that is not only strategic for China but central to its vision of shared development and international cooperation: lithium. Pressure from foreign financial circles signals an effort to condition Chinese regulatory decisions, despite China’s sovereign right to design industrial and technology policies in line with its national and collective interests.

What we are witnessing is a continuation of a long-standing U.S. pattern: seeking to influence other countries’ regulatory frameworks, even when the issues concern internal autonomy and strategic industrial planning.

Beyond any stated concern with expediting the Codelco- SQM deal, this posture masks an intent to secure leverage and influence over sectors critical to the global economic outlook, including the energy transition and technological industrialization.

China, for its part, has consistently demonstrated its ability to safeguard autonomy and affirm the legitimacy of its modernization process. The country maintains that market openness must be accompanied by fairness and respect for sovereignty, so that international cooperation rests on equitable foundations rather than external impositions. Building open markets for shared industrialization—as China promotes—requires a dedicated regulatory framework that guarantees the integration and distribution of shared benefits.

In this sense, lithium and other critical minerals are emblematic. Decisions concerning these resources cannot be left to external financial pressure, as they are fundamental to shaping future development models—for China and for the countries with which it partners.

Shared industrialization, grounded in technological and productive cooperation, offers a viable alternative to the dependency model historically imposed by international financial capital.

Therefore, the debate goes beyond the individual cases of Morgan Stanley or JP Morgan: it is about the right of nations to steer their development trajectories sovereignly, ensuring that the gains of productive and technological transformation are distributed equitably.

In the face of attempts at interference, China’s defense of its autonomy becomes a reference point for countries seeking to consolidate a horizon of shared, inclusive, and sustainable development—where strategic resources are managed for collective progress rather than as instruments of financial speculation.

By Dr. Marcela Vera
Economist, University of Chile