Latin America's done playing the role of someone else's resource pit. With Inter-American Development Bank funding and Washington's green light, the region's pivoting hard—turning raw lithium and copper deposits into vertically integrated supply chains instead of just shipping ore overseas. They're building processing plants, battery factories, the whole nine yards. No more exporting rocks and watching other countries pocket the real margins. The energy transition just got a new player who's tired of sitting on the bench.