Half of the world’s known lithium sits in the briny salt flats of three countries: Bolivia, Argentina, and Chile. Bolivia has the largest deposits in the “Lithium Triangle,” but resistance from indigenous groups and testy relations with foreign capital have largely kept its lithium in the ground. With electric vehicle producers expecting a lithium supply deficit as soon as 2028, investors are eyeing the rich resources of Argentina and Chile, where two diametrically opposed governments have taken dramatically different approaches to their mineral wealth.

Chile is currently the world’s second-largest lithium producer, after Australia. Because the country designated lithium as a strategic resource in 1979, it has only issued concessions to two companies, the Chilean firm SQM and the American company Albemarle. Left-wing president Gabriel Boric announced a plan to scale up production in 2023 — but he hopes to do so while maintaining some degree of state control over the massive extractive industry. Although Boric’s plan throws new salt flats open to investors, it also calls for the creation of a state-owned lithium company, which will oversee its own projects and hold a substantial stake in all private mining concerns. When Albemarle and SQM renew their leases, they will have to give the state a majority share in their operations.

“If it were my money, I would go and explore Argentina,” remarked Daniel Jimenez, a longtime SQM executive, in response to Boric’s plan for public-private partnerships. That’s exactly what many investors are doing. In Argentina, they can count on the support of right-wing libertarian president Javier Milei, whose strategy for jump-starting the country’s ailing economy includes laying out the red carpet for overseas mining firms. Of the Lithium Triangle countries, Argentina already has by far the fewest restrictions on foreign extraction. Milei intends to further unfetter the industry by privatizing two state-owned mining firms, eliminating an 8% export tax on mining products, tearing up customs restrictions, and ending the requirement that businesses report financial and environmental data to the government. The result has been what the business press is calling a “white gold rush,” with JPMorgan Chase projecting that Argentina’s lithium industry could overtake Chile’s by 2027.