The global energy transition is accelerating. Even the still oil-dependent United States is being pulled toward renewables, not only for climate reasons but also for industrial relevance. Batteries — for electric vehicles, for grid storage, for stabilizing power systems — sit at the center of that shift. They are not just climate tools; they are an industry. Research, innovation, and manufacturing capacity in batteries and storage technology translate into competitiveness, leverage, and potentially billions of dollars in economic value. In other words, whoever builds and controls this part of the supply chain will help write the rules of the next energy era.

That kind of money attracts risk-taking. And, in some cases, it attracts conduct that crosses legal and ethical lines. In September, more than 300 South Korean nationals were detained — and later deported — in an immigration raid at a Hyundai auto manufacturing site near Savannah, Georgia. The company had allegedly used short-term visitor visas, which do not allow employment, to staff its factory in open violation of U.S. immigration law. The raid came even as South Korea has pledged billions of dollars in U.S. investment tied to the electric vehicle and battery supply chain. The message was blunt: the United States wants the jobs and the factories, but it is not willing to look the other way about how those factories are staffed.

Alongside the rush to build battery manufacturing capacity, the private sector has been intensely focused on something just as critical — and arguably harder to secure —reliable access to the raw materials that make these technologies possible. The United States depends overwhelmingly on foreign sources for so-called critical minerals — lithium, cobalt, nickel, rare-earth elements, and others. These aren’t just inputs for batteries and wind turbines. They’re also foundational to semiconductors, advanced computing, and defense systems. In other words, they are threaded through multiple pillars of U.S. economic strength and national security.

Demand for these minerals keeps climbing, and the curve is outpacing what U.S. domestic deposits and processing capacity can currently meet. That structural dependence is not something that can be reversed quickly. As a result, the fight to secure supply is now inseparable from the fight to stay competitive in clean energy, advanced electronics, and defense manufacturing.

When scarce natural resources become central to a country’s strategic position, scrutiny becomes non-negotiable. Here, China looms large. Beijing is the dominant force in mining and refining many of these minerals and in producing batteries, solar panels, wind turbines, and other core components of the renewable energy economy. Despite persistent tension between Washington and Beijing — tensions that may have cooled somewhat after the recent U.S.-China meeting in Busan — China’s innovation capacity and its entrenched commercial networks in critical minerals make it hard to ignore and, in many cases, hard to replace. Chinese firms remain both attractive and deeply competitive partners in the very sectors the U.S. says it wants to scale domestically.

That reality has produced a paradox in U.S. policy: openness to foreign capital and expertise, but increasing selectivity about where that capital and expertise come from. This is not theoretical. Look at HiTHIUM (Xiamen Hithium Energy Storage Technology Co.), a Chinese stationary battery manufacturer that recently announced plans to build a $200 million facility in Texas.

On paper, that sounds exactly like what U.S. industrial planners say they want: onshore production capacity in a strategic sector. But HiTHIUM is not a typical outside investor. The company has received extensive backing from the Chinese state and even from elements of the military. It is also one of six Chinese companies that Congress placed on a procurement ban list for defense-related technologies. This is the national security red zone where economics, security, and industrial strategy collide.

Then there are HiTHIUM’s own fundamentals. The company’s finances raise immediate questions about durability and intent. HiTHIUM tried for a second initial public offering in Hong Kong but was blocked by regulators in September. Its filings show a shaky path to profitability: two straight years of losses before finally reporting positive earnings in 2024 — and even then only on razor-thin margins, largely propped up by Chinese government subsidies. The company is carrying a debt-to-asset ratio of roughly 73 percent. Its receivables turnover days — essentially, how long it takes to collect money it’s owed — stretched to nearly 230 days in the first half of 2025. Its gross margin remains below 18 percent.

These are not signs of a firm on solid footing. They are signs of a firm that may be running hot on state support, borrowing heavily, and racing to prove commercial viability. The company has continued to seek legitimacy in capital markets, filing yet another IPO application on October 27.

For HiTHIUM, planting a flag in Texas would offer something more valuable than a U.S. address. U.S.-based production could allow a Chinese-backed firm to present itself as “domestic,” softening the force of tariffs and restrictions aimed at Chinese tech companies and defense-linked suppliers. For policymakers, that is the nightmare scenario: an end run around industrial policy disguised as local investment. And if a company is already showing signs of financial strain, the fear is that regulatory violations — including on labor and immigration, like those alleged at Hyundai’s plant in Georgia — will follow as it tries to hold costs down and scale quickly.

The United States says it wants to build a secure, competitive energy industry. That goal cannot rest on a foundation of dependency, opacity, and firms whose practices would never survive real scrutiny. The point of screening foreign investment, including Chinese investment, is not to close the door. It’s to make sure the companies walking through it are stable, accountable, and aligned with U.S. long-term interests.

Industrial ambition without guardrails is vulnerability. Industrial ambition with guardrails is a strategy. If the U.S. insists on the latter — tying growth to transparency, labor standards, and financial credibility — then the next generation of American energy production will not simply exist on U.S. soil. It will actually be American.