In April, the Trump administration released an executive order expediting the licensing of deep-sea mining. On Monday, the U.N.-affiliated International Seabed Authority (“ISA”) responded, asking its secretary general to seek information about member states and seabed mining companies ‘at risk of violating international law’ through unilateral moves.
At the center of all this is something called ‘polymetalic nodules,’ little tomato-sized rocks, ripe with rare earths and abundant on the sea floor off the coast of California. The U.S. wants access to this source of the critical minerals to counter China’s dominance of the industry.
Alas, the ISA is supposed to be the bottom line for seabed mining permissions and that body is likely to find the U.S.’ unilateral licensing of mining companies is a no-no. Rest assured that environmental non-profits will push the ISA as hard as possible to take a stand against Washington, the U.N.’s largest financial backer.
Bloomberg reports that on Monday, delegates to the ISA’s annual meeting in Kingston, Jamaica, railed on Trump’s move, and one of the loudest voices came from – wait for it! – China, who’s representatives denounced the US for “unilateralist hegemonic acts” and attempting to “replace the global standards with US standards.”
GID take: This will become a new front on the war over critical materials. At least one company, the U.S. arm of a Canadian mining company, is standing by, ready to deploy new technology to harness the nodules. The technology is still unproven, and any extracted rare earths would still need to be refined, for which U.S. capacity is limited (especially compared to China).
The upshot: Even if the U.S. plows through the legal and environmental hurdles, the new source of rare earths is still probably years away from chipping away at China’s dominance. So more than a race, this is more like a marathon, but the starting gun has been fired.
