https://unherd.com/2026/05/trump-is-sna ... edition=us
But at the bottom of the world’s oceans lie the forbidden fruit of the mining sector: an estimated $20 trillion of deep-sea minerals. Since the Sixties, diplomats have fought over that unplucked fruit. Soon, the conflict will enter public view, bringing to a head many decades of diplomatic skirmishing.
The first fortifications were laid by a Maltese diplomat. With Uncle Sam soon to imprint the virgin lunar regolith with its first bootprint, Arvid Pardo urged the UN to declare another vast, unclaimed realm — the ocean floor — off-limits to colonists.
Eventually, in 1982, the UN came up with a treaty to govern deep-sea mining. It was an extraordinary document, outlining a proposal that the UN itself, via an entity called “the Enterprise”, be permitted to mine; that signatories’ mining operations, should they outcompete conventional mines in developing countries, could be compelled by UN judges to pause their work; that profits be taxed by the UN and redistributed among member states; and that if a signatory were to develop particularly effective mining technology, such as equipment that could mine a seabed five kilometers below the surface, it would have to share that technology with the rest of the world — even if the innovator were the US and a beneficiary were the USSR. Perhaps predictably, the proposals were greeted with obloquy from Ronald Reagan. The US did not sign the treaty, nor did it sign the watered-down version that followed.
Even without the Americans involved, the would-be regulators have found it impossible to reach an agreement. The International Seabed Authority (ISA), which was set up by the UN in 1994, continues to deliberate. Of particular difficulty is the unresolved question of precisely how much harm undersea mining will cause to marine life. Europe lobbies for caution; the Third World for a cut of the profits; but those who are best-placed to profit are becoming impatient. The Pacific island state Nauru is leading the charge, but Japan, Russia and India, too, are tired of waiting.
Over the years, the ISA has issued a limited number of licenses for commercial operations, sponsored by individual governments, to explore the ocean floor, if not yet to mine it.
But these various efforts do not touch the seabed and its $20 trillion booty. It has not escaped Washington’s attention that the ISA’s long delays suit China, which happens to be the body’s biggest funder.
Last April, the White House lost patience. President Trump signed an executive order via which the US has given itself the power to award deep-sea mining permits, bypassing the ISA. America’s favored mining companies will target the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, a vast stretch of the Pacific seabed where the local polymetallic nodules harbor metals — nickel, manganese, copper, cobalt — that are crucial for batteries.
Drums are now sounding in the deep. The US could issue its first mining permit this year or next, though large-scale activity will take several years more. The likely beneficiary is the Metals Company, whose two exploration licenses cover an area larger than Great Britain. These licenses, having been sponsored in part by Nauru and Tonga, are recognized by the ISA. Yet trouble looms. America is on the unilateral warpath, and already the old regime has suffered a defection. Japan, putatively a member of the ISA, has agreed to collaborate with the US, and in February, Tokyo announced that it had successfully extracted mineral-rich mud from elsewhere in the Pacific. Thought to be among the minerals in that mud is neodymium.
The CCP, still aiming to oversee regulation that suits Chinese interests, remains committed to the ISA, which is attempting to hurry things up. In July, the body will meet in Kingston, Jamaica, but whether Part II of its 31st International Session will be the one that does the trick, turning those exploration licenses into full-fledged mining permits, is unlikely. Those countries that desire a share of the subsea spoils must now decide whether to stick with the ISA, join the American breakaway — or start a piratical operation of their own.
Through Trump’s caprice, Britain retains the Chagos Islands. The importance of the US-UK base on Diego Garcia is by now well-known; a more underrated providential gift of the archipelago, however, is its proximity to the mineral riches of the Indian Ocean. There are polymetallic nodules in this ocean, too, and polymetallic sulfides: hydrothermal vents that look like spires from the Sagrada Familia and are rich in copper, zinc, gold and silver. On this particular battlefield in the war for critical minerals, it is India, now in possession of three regional exploration licenses from the ISA, that has been the most muscular.
Britain, committed to a moratorium on deep-sea mining, and perhaps unwilling to irritate India and China, did not compete for those licenses.
As an aside, it is curious to read an outright british oriented publication after many years, usually for all countries like in europe, they will follow the template of the americans, boiled down to the basics and straight even if it is a hit piece, yet here it is a meandering account with literary flourishes thrown in for good measure, quite a marked difference, maybe that is why the bbc is so adept at the snake oil dealership.
