Updated on April 25, 2025, 07.11 am he
BANGKOK – US President Donald Trump has ordered his administration to accelerate the development of the mine industry in the deep sea, including in international waters governed by a United Nations Treaty that most nations are signators.
An executive decree of Trump signed Thursday indicates that the United States must “counter the growing influence of China on mineral resources of the seabed” – namely the nodules of potato size which line vast seabed areas and contain rare and minerals such as nickel, cobalt and manganese.
Like Trump’s pricing shock therapy, the policy of extraction of the deep sea threatens to upset an established part of the world order. As part of international sea law, nations have sought to shape a consensus on SI and how minerals of the deep sea should be exploited.
“The United States has a heart of national security and an economic interest in maintaining leadership in science and technology of the sea depths and mineral resources of the seabed,” said the decree.
“The United States faces unprecedented economic challenges and national security to ensure reliable supplies of criticism independent of foreign opponent control,” he said.
The exploitation of several kilometers nodules was presented by companies in the emerging industry as a source of minerals necessary for green technologies, such as electric vehicles, which would reduce dependence on fossil fuels.
In the midst of a general retirement by large companies of commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the deep -sea extraction companies have recently emphasized defense and security for mineral supply.
The skeptics say that minerals in so -called polymetallic nodules are already abundant on earth and warn that the extraction of seabed could cause irreparable damage to an oceanic environment which is still poorly understood by science.
Trump’s decree said that the Secretary of Commerce should in two months accelerate the process of issuing mineral exploration and commercial operating permit in the seabed areas beyond the US national jurisdiction.
The investigation fixes the United States against the International Section Funds Authority, or ISA, which was created in 1996 to regulate the exploitation of mineral allocations in international waters. About 54% of the seabed are under the jurisdiction of the ISA.
The secretary general of the ISA, Leticia Carvalho last month said that the authority was the “only universally recognized framework” to regulate mining in international waters.
“Any unilateral action would constitute a violation of international law and directly undermine the fundamental principles of multilateralism, peaceful use of the oceans and the framework of collective governance,” she said in a press release.
The United States has not signed the United Nations Convention on the Act of the Sea, which is the empowering treaty of the ISA, and is only an observer of authority.
Trump’s decree was partly foreshadowing by the request for the Metal Society request last month for the approval of the United States government to exploit the seabed under its 1980 mineral Act.
Metals Company has collaborated with the Nations of the Pacific Island of Nauru and Tonga in mine areas attributed to them in international Water of the Pacific Ocean.
TMC CEO Gerard Barron said that the executive decree marked a “pivot return” to the American leadership in minerals in the deep sea, an area which it once dominated.
“This action reaffirms the role of America in securing critical resources of the seabed and guarantees that the United States is not left behind in a strategic arena increasingly influenced by China,” he told RFA.
“We are impatient to deliver the first commercial nodule project to the world-in a responsible and economic manner,” he said.
Nauru in particular has rubbed against decision -making based on the consensus of the ISA, which means that after almost three decades, he did not agree with rules for the mining industry of the depths.
Other countries, from Norway to the Cook Islands of the South Pacific, investigate the exploitation of deep sources in their own waters, which does not require ISA approval.
Published by Mike Firn and Tajun Kang.
Updated with the comments of the Director General of the Metal Society.