The new U.S. climate law, officially known as the Inflation Reduction Act, has a number of provisions aimed at breaking China’s hold on certain strategic resources like cobalt, widely seen as vital to the future of electric mobility.

Cobalt is a critical ingredient used to manufacture electric vehicle batteries. The problem is that 60-70% of the world’s known reserves are in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where Chinese mining companies have emerged as the dominant players in the market — controlling much of the cobalt mining and refining sectors.