U.S. President Donald Trump has signed an executive order instructing the U.S. to expedite drilling of minerals, via the extraction of polymetallic nodules, from the seafloor in both international and U.S. territorial waters.
The executive order, which Trump signed 24 April, said that the U.S. “has a core national security and economic interest in maintaining leadership in deep sea science and technology and seabed mineral resources.”
“Our Nation can, through the exercise of existing authorities and by establishing international partnerships, access potentially vast resources in seabed polymetallic nodules; other subsea geologic structures; and coastal deposits containing strategic minerals such as nickel, cobalt, copper, manganese, titanium, and rare earth elements, which are vital to our national security and economic prosperity,” the order further explained.
The existing authority to which Trump referred is drawn from the Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act, which was passed in 1980. Under the act, companies can apply to NOAA for permits to explore and mine resources from the deep seabed. The law, however, has never been used to permit commercialized mining; instead, it has only been used for exploratory purposes.
Officially, the United Nations International Seabed Authority (ISA) holds jurisdiction over seabed mining in international waters by virtue of a 1994 treaty, ratified by 169 UN member states, including every major coastal economy except the U.S.
In contradiction to the UN treaty, the new executive order positions seabed mining as a necessity for American competitiveness and resource security, but experts have challenged these claims, as well as the economic benefits of the practice.
“The U.S. just signed on the dotted line for a very bad economic deal" that will ultimately be a "great gift for China's economy," University of California Santa Barbara Professor Douglas McCauley said in a recent release.
McCauley explained that the ISA's regulatory apparatus, which some industry stakeholders have critiqued as overly complicated and slow, has so far been helping to hold back unrestrained exploitation of seabed minerals by other countries.
"The U.S. has stepped forward to become the first pirate mining operation in international waters," he said. "With rules, we could have controlled the minerals that China or any country or person would take from this part of the ocean. Without any rules, China, simply put, will be far better at winning."
McCauley also said the economic proposition ...
