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 does not seem to add up.
“In our fever to get at these ocean minerals, the U.S. seems to have neglected to run the numbers,” he said. “The cobalt and nickel that could be mined from the ocean floor would be the most expensive cobalt and nickel mined anywhere on the planet.”
Victor Vescovo, the founder and CEO of investment firm Caladan Capital who is also a retired naval officer and undersea explorer, was also skeptical of the order's economic proposition.
“Deep sea mining is an untried, technically difficult, very expensive, and financially risky experiment to secure only two scarce metals available from seafloor mining that are no longer essential for making electric vehicle batteries," he said.
He also said that cobalt and nickel were available for cheaper prices elsewhere and that other rare earth metals the order mentioned are not "available in meaningful quantities from seafloor mining."
Nevertheless, the momentum that led to the order’s release had been building for a while.
In late March, Vancouver, Canada-based seabed mining company The Metals Company (TMC) announced that it was collaborating with the Trump administration to obtain authorization to mine in international waters – in defiance of the ISA.
“What we need is a regulator with a robust regulatory regime and who is willing to give our application a fair hearing," TMC Chairman and CEO Gerard Barron said at the time. "That’s why we’ve formally initiated the process of applying for licenses and permits under the existing U.S. seabed mining code. After extensive legal review and constructive engagement with NOAA and other officials across the U.S. government, we believe the U.S. offers a stable, transparent, and enforceable regulatory path."
ISA Secretary General Leticia Carvalho swiftly issued a response to Barron's announcement, calling for “the rule of law and multilateral cooperation,” which she said were necessary to safeguard the seabed’s status as a “Common Heritage of Humankind,” according to the UN treaty that established the ISA.
Barron’s announcement also drew the wariness of other ISA members, who agreed either that the risks of mining had not yet been sufficiently researched or that the wealth of the seabed should be the property of all nations.
Undeterred, Barron remained unconcerned about the environmental risks, saying that “we believe we have sufficient knowledge to get started and prove we can manage environmental risks."
At the time of the TMC announcement, Pew Charitable Trust Seabed Mining Project Director Julian Jackson told SeafoodSource there were well-known risks this practice would pose to animals in the abyssal zone that make up the first links in the ocean-wide food chain.
“We are trying to understand the risks to the wider ecosystem but also to fisheries, consumers, and all those whose lives depend on a healthy ocean,” Jackson said. “[Deep sea life] is dependent directly on these nodules. These nodules take years to form, and they’ll be gone. [Then], the whole food chain around the nodules starts to fall apart. It’s a very sensitive environment that takes a very long time to recover.”
ISA Costa Rica Delegate Gina Guillén-Grillo concurred, telling NPR that "ecosystems will be deeply harmed."
“Species that we don’t even know will be eliminated because we don’t even know what’s down there,” she said.
Environmental groups have also responded critically to TMC and the new executive order.
“The order flies in the face of NOAA’s mission,” Ocean Conservancy Vice President for External Affairs Jeff Waters said. “NOAA is charged with protecting, not imperiling, the ocean and its economic benefits, including fishing and tourism. Scientists agree that deep-sea mining is a deeply dangerous endeavor for our ocean and all of us who depend on it.”
He also pointed out that “areas of the U.S. seafloor where test mining took place over 50 years ago still haven’t fully recovered" and that areas targeted for mining overlap with important fisheries, threatening the nation's seafood industry.
“[The order is] a breach of international law with dire consequences for every country and person who benefits from the ocean as our common heritage [and] threatens to destabilize ocean governance globally and is an insult to the peoples and countries across the Pacific that this move will most impact,” Deep Sea Conservation Legal and Policy Advisor Duncan Currie said.
Despite these and other objections, President Trump’s executive order appears poised to allow TMC and others to begin commercializing the process of seabed mining.
"The expedited process, consistent with applicable law, should ensure efficiency, predictability, and competitiveness for American companies,” the order said.
TMC currently holds exploratory permits in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, a 3,100-mile stretch of the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and Central America.
