Out of the world's five largest lithium producing countries, the largest one by far is Australia, only China is in Asia, and half the world's reserves are in South America anyway.

The US will simply do whatever it always did and, should the need arise, simply putsch away whoever governs these reserves.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_lithium_p...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_Triangle