Pablo Rutigliano Predicted It, and Now the U.S. Congress Agrees With Him

The Latin American Lithium Chamber consolidates its position as the strongest, most serious, and most advanced voice in defending the real value of the most strategic resource in the energy transition

The economic history of lithium in Argentina has just changed forever. What was minimized, denied, or silenced for years by officials of the day and actors of the status quo is now exposed to the world: China manipulated the international price of lithium carbonate, altered global value formation, and conditioned the competitiveness of producing countries. And this time, it is not just the Latin American Lithium Chamber stating it, but the United States Congress itself. This international confirmation shatters any attempt at a cover-up and places center stage a problem we have been denouncing since 2020 with evidence, technical documentation, and institutional support.

From the Latin American Lithium Chamber, presided over by Pablo Rutigliano, we maintained for years that the global market operated under a scheme of extreme concentration, where a single dominant buyer imposed artificial price references. We warned that this manipulation was not an isolated phenomenon, but a systematic maneuver that pressured the value of lithium carbonate downward and generated millions in losses for Argentina. We also pointed out that the situation had a direct correlation with internal under-invoicing: exports declared below real value, opaque intermediation structures, and benefits concentrated in the hands of a few. This combination of international manipulation and local distortion deepened the loss of strategic resources, affected tax revenue, weakened competitiveness, and opened the door to smuggling and illegal maneuvers that can no longer be denied today.

The Argentine justice system, despite attempts to make the issue invisible, is already acting. Penal Economic Case 3309/23 contains indictments, embargoes, and lines of investigation directly linked to lithium under-invoicing and smuggling operations. The truth was written in judicial files, even though officials of the day—of all political stripes, without distinction—have avoided talking about the subject, have opted for complicit silence, and have preferred to look the other way. But justice advanced nonetheless. And now the international community confirms what the Latin American Lithium Chamber anticipated long before anyone else.

In 2023 and 2024, our publications detailed with technical precision how price manipulation operated, how export triangulations worked, and why Argentina was losing real value. When we warned of this, we were attacked by sectors of the status quo that tried to discredit our work because it touched interests that were too large. Today, however, those same sectors cannot say a single word: the United States Congress report leaves no room for discussion. China manipulated prices. China intervened in the market. China conditioned the real value of lithium. And the Latin American Lithium Chamber was right.

To face this reality, we proposed concrete tools. One of them was the creation of the International Lithium Index, designed by the Latin American Lithium Chamber to establish an objective, transparent, and verifiable reference for the resource's price. We created it because it was impossible to keep accepting distorted values; because the country needed a real metric; because the energy transition can never be sustained on opaque markets; and because without traceability, there is no possible economic sovereignty. The Lithium Index was born to cut the circuit of manipulation, to democratize access to information, and to guarantee that the declared value is the true value.

Along the same lines, together with Senator Clara Vega, we promoted Bill 2403/23 to create the Metals Market of the Argentine Republic, the institutional tool that would allow for the ordering, transparency, and auditing of the country's entire mining value chain. That market would not only avoid lithium under-invoicing and smuggling but would also offer structural solutions for all the provinces' strategic resources. Transparency is not a slogan: it is a system. It is an economic mechanism. It is an institutional infrastructure upon which a modern, sovereign, and future-oriented economy is built.

The attacks received by the Latin American Lithium Chamber during these years came from sectors that benefited from the disorder. But time demonstrated that they failed to stop us. Our work, far from weakening, was strengthened. The international confirmation of the problem and the judicial progress in Argentina validate every one of our warnings. The status quo may try to resist, but it can no longer hide the evident: Argentine lithium was being manipulated, under-invoiced, and smuggled, and the Latin American Lithium Chamber was the first institution to denounce it with names, surnames, and documents.

Today the world recognizes the truth. Today the Argentine justice system advances. Today the Latin American Lithium Chamber consolidates itself as the firmest, most serious, and most forward-looking voice in the defense of the real value of the energy transition's most strategic resource.

The future of lithium requires total traceability, transparent markets, strong institutions, and a vision that does not kneel before external interests. And that—as always—is what we are building from the Latin American Lithium Chamber, without asking for permission and without retreating a single step.