It looks like CocoaPods integration is broken in (at least)

1.6.21

and

1.7.10

in case you want to *depend on a Pod that requires the most recent iOS versions (15.4/15.5)*; filed a bug here: 🐛 KT-53174 CocoaPods: Synthetic Podfile does not specify deployment target

Yes. It also ignores your dependency versions, which has just been fixed https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/KT-53127/MaterialComponents-normal-armv7-in-Cocoapods-plugin-between-Kotlin-1621-and-170