President Donald Trump has issued an executive order to bolster the deep-sea mining industry.
This is his latest move to increase US access to nickel, copper, and other vital minerals that are heavily used throughout the economy.
The order, which the US President signed in private, aims to revive mining in both US and international waters as part of a push to counter China’s growing control of the key minerals business.
Parts of the Pacific Ocean and elsewhere are thought to contain vast amounts of potato-shaped rocks known as polymetallic nodules, which contain the building blocks for electric vehicles and electronics.
According to an administration official, over 1 billion metric tons of these nodules are anticipated to be in US seas and include manganese, nickel, copper, and other vital minerals.
The official noted that extracting them may enhance US GDP by $300 billion over ten years and create 100,000 employment.
The order directs the administration to expedite mining permits under the Deep Seabed Hard Minerals Resource Act of 1980 and to establish a process for issuing permits along the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf.
It also orders the expedited review of seabed mining permits “in areas beyond the national jurisdiction,” a move likely to spark friction with the international community.
The International Seabed Authority – created by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which the U.S. has not ratified – has for years been considering standards for deep-sea mining in international waters, although it has yet to formalize them due to unresolved differences over acceptable levels of dust, noise and other factors from the practice.
Supporters of deep-sea mining say it would lessen the need for large mining operations on land, which are often unpopular with host communities. Environmental groups are calling for all activities to be banned, warning that industrial operations on the ocean floor could cause irreversible biodiversity loss.
Any country can allow deep-sea mining in its own territorial waters, roughly up to 200 nautical miles from shore, and companies are already lining up to mine U.S. waters.
Impossible Metals earlier this month asked the administration to launch a commercial auction for access to deposits of nickel, cobalt and other critical minerals off the coast of American Samoa.
Shares of The Metals Company – among the most prominent of deep-sea mining companies – rose on Thursday by roughly 40% to hit a 52-week high of $3.39 per share after the Reuters report earlier in the day on the executive order.
U.S. access to critical minerals – especially those produced by Chinese companies – has dwindled in recent months as Beijing has limited exports of several types. That, in turn, has ratcheted up pressure on Washington to support efforts to boost domestic mining.
Last week, Trump officials fast-tracked permitting on 10 mining projects across the United States and implemented an abbreviated approval process for mining projects on federal lands.
The administration also said it would approve one of the country’s largest copper mines.
Trump’s Thursday order uses the term “rare earths” to broadly refer to all critical minerals and is not meant to imply the administration believes the nodules contain neodymium and the 16 other rare earths, the administration official said.
