Lithium in 2025 is a battery metal first and foremost: USGS assigns 87% of global end use to batteries, with the rest fragmented across ceramics and glass, greases, air treatment, mold fluxes, medical uses, and minor applications. The market is split between hard-rock mineral supply led by Australia and brine supply led by Chile and Argentina, while China combines meaningful mine output with dominant downstream conversion capacity that the USGS chapter references through its discussion of carbonate and hydroxide markets.

The commercial reality in 2024 was a sharp transition from scarcity to oversupply. USGS reports world production up 18% to about 240,000 tons of lithium content while consumption rose to about 220,000 tons. Prices fell across all major reference streams, forcing some project delays and idling one U.S. tailings-based operation, even as capacity expansions still occurred in Argentina, Chile, China, and Zimbabwe.

Supply security remains a strategic policy priority on both sides of the Atlantic. The United States remained more than 50% net import reliant, sourcing most imports from Chile and Argentina, while Washington funded new domestic extraction, processing, recycling, and battery projects. The EU classified lithium as both critical and, in battery-grade form, strategic, reflecting its central role in electrification supply chains.