TAMUNING, Guam — A U.S. project to potentially mine an area of the Pacific seabed the size of Nevada, near two U.S. territories, is the latest example of growing competition in the region between the United States and China, a local government official told Radio Free Asia.
Seabed areas demarcated for potential development total 69 million acres (280,000 square kilometers) in two distinct geographic areas east and west of the Northern Mariana Islands and Guam.
“In both regions, key minerals for commercial development include potentially commercially viable quantities of cobalt, nickel, copper, manganese, zinc, and rare earth elements, as well as other minerals whose mining and processing may prove economically viable in the future,” Douglas Boren, Pacific regional director for the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, or BOEM, said in a March 13 memo detailing the plan.
In the same memo, Boren said the Trump administration recognizes an “overreliance” on foreign-sourced minerals and products that use them, potentially endangering “United States defense capabilities, infrastructure development, and technological innovation.”
Boren cited executive orders that direct the Interior Department to accelerate mineral development in the region, including one signed by the president on April 24, 2025, that focused on “strengthening partnerships with allies and industry to counter China’s growing influence over seabed mineral resources.”
The memo specified that the identified areas would be subject to “environmental analyzes carried out for the proposed rental offer”. meaning that parts of both plots could be omitted from the rental area. He also took into account the concerns of opponents of the underwater mining proposal, including potential damage to fisheries, tourism and the environment.
Geopolitics at stake
Senator William Parkinson of the Guam Legislature noted that the race to explore the ocean floor is driven by a broader strategic competition playing out across the Indo-Pacific.
“Guam is on the front lines,” Parkinson told RFA. “Deep sea mining raises environmental concerns, and they are real. »
Parkinson said concerns over China’s growing influence in the Pacific extend beyond the mining sector.
“When ships linked to the Chinese state repeatedly survey the waters near Guam and other strategic corridors, we must ask not only what minerals they are interested in, but also what military advantage they seek,” he said, adding that the competition between Washington and Beijing echoes World War II, when Guam was part of the Pacific Theater campaign.
Reuters and other media outlets reported this week that in addition to searching for minerals, China is mapping the seabed and that the data has military applications, according to naval experts.
Besides being a variable in the larger arena of strategic competition with China, underwater mining also brings in big money. The emerging industry has a potential valuation of up to $20 trillion, according to Belgium-based management consultancy Arthur D. Little.
Local opposition
But residents of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands feel their concerns are not being heard, Guam Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero said in response to the March 13 memo.
“We are disappointed that in all of our attempts to engage with BOEM throughout this process, they have failed to consider and ignored the people most impacted by their actions,” she said. “We will be present on all fronts to ensure our concerns are heard and our oceans are protected. »
Last year, the legislatures of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands separately passed resolutions calling for a moratorium on deep-sea mining in the waters surrounding the islands. However, federal decisions supersede local legislative measures.
To expedite leasing of demarcated areas, BOEM streamlined the permitting process and removed territorial governments from the decision-making process.
Guerrero said the plan was “driven by industry interests” at the expense of “the environment, biodiversity, fisheries, tourism, public health, national security and regional relations.”
The proposal ignores residents and governments in neighboring areas, Angelo Villagomez, a researcher at the Center for American Progress in Washington, told RFA. He criticized pushing “an industrial experiment into one of the most biodiverse and culturally rich ocean regions on the planet.”
“This decision to move forward with the largest deep-sea mining project in U.S. history ignores major concerns expressed by local people and governments. Deep-sea mining poses irreversible risks to fragile ecosystems, the fisheries that support our communities, and the cultural heritage of the Chamorro and Refaluwasch peoples,” he said, referring to two ethnic groups living in the Marianas.
Beyond the Northern Marianas and Guam, Washington has begun engaging with the governments of the Cook Islands, Tonga and Nauru to forge mining partnerships in seabed mining. Although no commercial mining has begun, the International Seabed Authority has issued several contracts in the Clarion-Clipperton area, an area between Hawaii and Mexico that is known for being home to the world’s largest polymetallic deposits, as well as an abundance of biodiverse marine life. Most of the contracts awarded in the area are sponsored by Nauru and Tonga.
Meanwhile, in an area of the seabed near the Solomon Islands, another US Pacific territory, mineral exploration activities are already underway.
Deposits there contain approximately 10 billion tons of high-grade ore, providing an important, strategically located offshore U.S. source of nickel, cobalt, manganese and copper, according to John Wasko, executive director of the American Samoa Development Council.
“China has a monopoly on land-based refining. Why bother?” Wasko told RFA, explaining that the United States has the potential to produce rare earth elements more sustainably than using the “old and dirty” technology of Chinese rare earth refineries.
Chinese monopoly
According to the Canadian government, China mines 69% of the world’s total rare earths each year, followed by the United States, far behind, with 12%. China also has a 90% monopoly on refining, where rare earth elements used in everyday items like cell phones, cars and solar panels are separated from the mined ore.
Although most of China’s rare earth production comes from land mines, it is also trying to increase its rare earth mining capabilities in the seas to eventually expand its dominance in the rare earth market.
Parkinson said he was concerned that growing competition between great powers was turning the Pacific into “a chessboard where island communities are pushed aside.”
“The Pacific must remain in the hands of the Pacific Islanders,” he said. “We cannot allow the Blue Continent to be treated as a warehouse of raw materials or a secret battlespace. Our people, our environment and our security all demand better than that.”
Edited by Eugene Whong.