U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has said the U.S. must take steps to reduce China’s advantage in electric car batteries. Bloomberg reports. According to Buttigieg, the U.S. should set up “its own refineries for critical raw materials.”

He made the statements in an interview during a visit to the summit in Ise-Shima, Japan, along with his counterparts from the G7 countries. Butiguek also believes that the United States should build better relationships to guarantee the supply of raw materials. ‘

China

The mining and refining of key raw materials for electric cars is mostly done in China, Buttigieg says. “America must work to develop an economically sound, environmentally and geopolitically sustainable strategy to incorporate those key elements into the American economy.”

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According to BloombergNEF, more than half of the electric car battery packs produced are made in China, and more than 90 percent of the necessary parts are cut in China. It is therefore almost impossible for European and American car makers to match the performance of the Chinese industry.