Trump's Industrial Economy policies just took down their latest scalp, so to speak. 

One week after Bloomberg reported that the White House was considering a 10% stake in one of the largest North American lithium mining companies, Lithium Americas, on Tuesday afternoon, the US government agreed to acquire a stake in the company, Secretary of Energy Chris Wright said Tuesday on Bloomberg TV, giving a boost to the Canadian company as it develops its Thacker Pass lithium project in Nevada.

The deal is the Trump administration’s latest effort to speed development of a domestic supply chain to counter China’s dominance over metals critical to defense, automaking and consumer electronics. In July, the US Defense Department announced a $400 million equity investment in MP Materials Corp. to fund a major new plant making rare-earth magnets.It was followed by a similar deal with chip giant Intel. 

Lithium Americas’ Thacker Pass project in Nevada is forecast to become a major lithium source for a domestic industry that currently produces only small amounts of the battery metal.

Lithium Americas, which produces minerals used in electric-vehicle batteries, is also in talks with automaker General Motors over the terms of its $2.26 billion government loan for a large lithium mining project it is developing in Nevada.

Those discussions included debating whether the U.S. should take a stake in Lithium Americas as a condition for receiving a loan, the Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month.

The US-listed shares of Lithium Americas have risen 92% this year and soared 32% to $7.53 in after-hours trading Tuesday.