Trump’s Push For Deep-Sea Metals Clashes With UN Ocean Treaty

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(Bloomberg) — President Donald Trump first set his sights on Canada and Greenland’s mineral resources. Now he’s eyeing the global seabed that holds vast troves of critical metals for green technologies but is controlled by a United Nations-affiliated organization. 

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Trump may be unlikely to gain dominion over Canada or Greenland, but he’s vying to supersede the UN treaty that governs nations’ use of the ocean, potentially with far-reaching consequences for untouched and biodiverse deep sea ecosystems targeted for exploitation.

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“‘The next gold rush’: President Trump unlocks access to critical deep seabed minerals,” the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration proclaimed in a press release on Friday.

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Just days after Trump issued an executive order expediting the processing of seabed mining applications, The Metals Company (TMC) on Tuesday applied for a US license to extract minerals from the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, an immense region of the Pacific that stretches from Hawaii to Mexico. 

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There’s a hitch, though. The Clarion-Clipperton Zone and the rest of the ocean floor in international waters falls under jurisdiction of the International Seabed Authority, whose 169 member nations plus the European Union are loath to give up their mandate to regulate deep sea mining for the benefit of humanity while ensuring the effective protection of the marine environment. 

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ISA Secretary-General Leticia Carvalho on Wednesday warned that unilateral action by the US “sets a dangerous precedent that could destabilize the entire system of global ocean governance.”

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At stake is not just who gets to exploit polymetallic nodules — potato-sized rocks rich in cobalt, nickel and other metals that carpet the Clarion-Clipperton seabed — or the fate of  the otherworldly deep sea life that lives on them, but the future of a treaty that has kept commercial peace on the world’s oceans for more than 30 years.

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Here’s what else to know.

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Who is in charge of deep-sea mining in international waters? 

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The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea established the ISA to regulate deep sea mining beyond national jurisdiction, with royalties on any mining to be distributed among member states. The organization, which is headquartered in Kingston, Jamaica, has spent more than a decade negotiating mining regulations with an end currently not in sight. 

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For more than 30 years, the ISA has forestalled a deep-sea gold rush as nations respected its mandate to first develop regulations to minimize harm from mining to unique marine life that evolved over eons in the frigid darkness of the abyss. Then TMC grew weary of waiting, saying it spent half a billion dollars on environmental assessments required to prepare an ISA mining license application. 

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What is The Metals Company? 

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TMC is a public company registered in Canada and run by Gerard Barron, an Australian former internet advertising entrepreneur. It holds two of 31 ISA exploration licenses. As ISA negotiations dragged on, company executives lobbied Trump White House officials to issue seabed mining licenses. A polymetallic nodule “was presented to the president last week and now sits on the Resolute Desk” in the Oval Office, Barron said at a congressional hearing on Tuesday. The company’s US subsidiary has applied for the US seabed mining licenses.