Around the Cook Islands, the world’s two most powerful countries are exploring the possibility of deep-sea mining for critical mineralsThe GuardianPrianka SrinivasanThu 23 Oct 2025Deep below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, the seafloor is dotted with clusters of brown and black rocks, each containing valuable metals.The rocks, known as polymetallic nodules, hold reserves of critical minerals that could be used to power clean energy and fuel a new industrial future. In the Cook Islands, a nation halfway between Hawaii and New Zealand, exploration vessels are mapping the mineral-rich seabeds.Here, the US and China are both exploring the resource potential – setting up a new strategic battle between the world’s two most powerful countries.Geopolitical analyst Jocelyn Trainer from Terra Global Insights says the two superpowers are jostling for influence and determined to “race each other to the bottom of the sea”.“We really see this competition to be the first – whether that’s the developer, producer, or the physical first at the bottom of the sea,” Trainer said.
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Fears for ‘fragile’ ecosystemsDouglas McCauley, professor of ocean science at the University of California, says he is concerned that intensifying competition to mine the deep sea may harm vulnerable underwater ecosystems.“The mining that’s being proposed would happen in some of the most fragile or the least resilient ecosystems on the planet,” McCauley says, adding that he is particularly concerned about the impact of “wastewater plumes” that would be discharged into the sea once minerals were extracted.In its agreement with the Cook Islands, China has said it will follow “the spirit of international law, including the principles of the United Nations convention on the law of the sea”. The convention sets out the legal framework for managing and protecting the world’s oceans, including mineral resources in international waters.Unlike China, the US is not a signatory to the law, and Trump has been criticised, both by China and others, for directing agencies to “expedite” seabed mining in both US and international waters despite not being party to this international convention.McCauley too warns that the geopolitical race for critical minerals risks opening the door to a new era of unregulated exploitation, calling it “a very dangerous opening of Pandora’s box”.
And with Trump billionaire friends, they have no concern over the environment, it is grab what you can grab and screw everyone else.... and the planet.
This brings back memories. In 1977, I took a college course in International Relations. My term paper was on this exact subject: The Law of the Sea Treaty.
ReplyDeleteBack then, the issues were mostly economic. Environmental issues were barely beginning to be considered. The interested parties at the time were the Americans, who were working on early technology to do something about seabed minerals, and everybody else who were not, to put it bluntly.
The Americans were not happy with the results of the negotiations, rules that they perceived to make exploitation more difficult and expensive. There was a UN involvement in structuring the negotiations. At the time, the UN was strongly biased against the Americans for several reasons, some valid and some imagined. The dynamic was similar to how some environmental treaties were negotiated decades later. The Americans, Nixon-Ford and Carter administrations, were mostly united in opposition, unlike recent recent administrations’ actions on environmental accords.
My paper’s conclusion held little hope of a broadly accepted and enforceable agreement unless negotiations would be reopened and structured more fairly. They never were and the treaty went nowhere without the Americans signing it. Fortunately for the environment, extraction technology left a lot to be desired and still does.
The Chinese have since entered as serious parties perhaps capable of exploiting the resources. The Chinese, though they signed the treaty, have a poor environmental record, even at home. Their record of observing agreements they sign is no better. The Americans are starting to behave better at home on environmental issues but abroad, not so much. Their internal politics amplifies their fits and starts, as stated above. Remember, they did not sign this treaty.
To debate which side will treat the environment better is to argue virtue among whores.
Internal politics and motivations, real and imagined, may affect the speed of exploitation but all sides are moving toward exploitation. Biden and Trump and Xi are just leaders of interested groups whose policies on these issues were formed long ago. On environmental disaster, they all differ only on speed downhill and not by much, pious statements notwithstanding. Only the enormous technological challenges stand in any group’s way. Regardless of who emerges capable of doing extraction, the future does not look at all good for the environment.
The previous long winded response is mine. —Abby
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