The U.S. is preparing to mine the sea floor for critical minerals to reduce its dependence on China. But doing so in international waters could undermine a global rules-based order and indirectly benefit Beijing, policy experts warn. Efforts to create international guidelines on seabed mining through the International Seabed Authority (ISA), a U.N. regulator, have long stalled, with many countries and organizations opposing such activity over environmental concerns. Amid the gridlock, Washington is seeking to expedite the development of its deep-sea mining industry under U.S. law and is evaluating commercial license applications from firms such as Canada’s The Metals Company . Deep-sea mining involves the extraction of critical mineral resources from the ocean floor, including rare earth elements. China is a dominant supplier of many critical minerals and most rare earths, and the U.S. is looking for ways to reduce its reliance on the country. But a unilateral decision from the U.S. to conduct deep-sea mining in international waters would pose “grave risks,” the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank, warned in a report published earlier this week. If Washington isn’t careful, doing so could undermine international law and risk “creating opportunities for China and others to bend, break, and remake the rules of the sea to their benefit—at the expense of international peace and security,” the report said. China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment. Regulatory gaps According to the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which came into effect in 1994, countries have the right to approve deep-sea mining activities within their territorial waters. The ISA, established under UNCLOS, is tasked with regulating seabed-mining activities in international waters. But despite years of deliberation, the authority has yet to establish agreed upon international standards. According to CSIS, the delay stems not only from “bureaucratic inertia” but from the opposition of 38 countries that have declared support for a moratorium on seabed mining pending further study of the environmental consequences. Scientists have warned that the full environmental impacts of deep-sea mining remain hard to predict, with many environmental advocacy groups standing against the practice. U.S. speeds ahead The U.S. is merely an observer state to the ISA and has not ratified UNCLOS. In April, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order to expedite deep-sea mining within U.S. and international waters. Beijing condemned the move as a violation of international law. Days after the order, The Metals Company applied under U.S. law for two exploration licenses and the world’s first commercial recovery permit in the mineral rich Clarion-Clipperton Zone in the Pacific. According to CSIS, that has increased the likelihood the U.S. will allow mining in areas under the ISA’s jurisdiction. TMC has also renegotiated a deep-sea mining deal with the government of Nauru, an ISA member that has been granted special exploration rights in the Clarion Clipperton Zone, in preparation for a potential permit from the U.S. However, If the U.S. were to go through with such permitting, the risks would extend beyond environmental concerns, warned Isaac Kardon, a international security scholar and China foreign policy analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “If the U.S. licenses firms to mine the international seabed, it directly challenges the authority of the UNCLOS system and does needless damage to U.S. interests in stable maritime rules,” he told CNBC. Potential risks According to the CSIS report, a unilateral move by the U.S. against UNCLOS would “plunge its high seas mining regime into crisis,” as it would discourage member states from waiting for ISA approval. That, by extension, would result in “disputes over who should be allowed to mine where,” diminishing the power of both international law and the U.S. over maritime issues, it added. CSIS’ Prétat said this could also have the effect of ceding governance of some of the high seas to China, with UNCLOS acting as one of the few points of consensus against Beijing’s disputed “nine-dash” declaration, through which it claims sovereignty over almost all the South China Sea . “UNCLOS has been extremely important for claimants in Southeast Asia to resist Chinese pressure to cede resources and traditional fishing grounds in their exclusive economic zones,” he said. “If the U.S. violates UNCLOS, I think it advantages China and creates space for it to continue to violate aspects of UNCLOS in a big way. It really takes the wind out of the sails of those efforts to hold China accountable,” he added. Beijing officials have previously warned that a U.S. push to approve deep-sea mining in domestic and international waters “violates international law.” China’s state-owned enterprises, such as China Minmetals, have been preparing to trial deep-sea mining equipment in the Pacific Ocean this year. Carnegie Endowment’s Kardon said if Washington were to contradict ISA, it would give Beijing an opportunity to condemn the U.S. as the “true violator of international law and the law of the sea.” And if China follows suit and unleashes its massive, latent deep sea mining industrial capacity, it will be best positioned to be the dominant player in deep sea mineral extraction, refining and production, he added. What the U.S. should do? The United States should, therefore, instead prioritize exploring and recovering critical minerals within its own continental shelf, experts said. The U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has several programs related to the exploration of deep-sea mining solely within its own borders recognized by UNCLOS. The U.S. and the Cook Islands recently signed a cooperation agreement on seabed mining in the latter’s exclusive economic zone, which is outside the jurisdiction of ISA . However, CSIS’ report notes that the Cook Islands is also exploring mining cooperation with China, and it remains to be seen how durable such an agreement will be. The ultimate impact of the pathway Washington chooses will depend largely on perspective, argues Maria José Valverde, an analyst of biodiversity and sustainability at Eurasia Group. “A unilateral pursuit of deep-sea mining, if commercially successful, could be beneficial for the private sector, including domestic and international players within the U.S., reducing dependency on foreign minerals while pushing innovation and economic opportunities,” she said. “However, from a diplomatic perspective, such a move risks diminishing U.S. credibility, particularly in environmental multilateral arenas.”
