Trans-Pacific View | Diplomacy | Environment | Oceania

US Deep-Sea Mining Policy Is Eroding Its Pacific Partnerships

The current unilateral approach may secure minerals in the short term, but it will erode the Pacific partnerships and deterrence architecture the United States needs for long-term security.

In April 2025, the United States declared deep seabed mining a national priority. The decision had a clear motive: over the last year, China’s escalating export restrictions on critical minerals essential to defense systems, advanced semiconductors, and AI hardware had transformed supply chain vulnerability from a theoretical concern into an emergency. 

Since then, the policy response has been swift. Executive Order 14285 directed federal agencies to maintain leadership in deep sea science, technology, and seabed mineral resources. In January 2026, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration consolidated and accelerated its permitting process for deep seabed mining. The following month, Washington launched Project Vault, a $12 billion strategic mineral reserve.

Each is a reasonable response to a real strategic vulnerability. However, the question is no longer whether the United States should pursue seabed minerals; it is how. The current trajectory privileges unilateral action outside the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and the International Seabed Authority (ISA). That choice may secure minerals in the short term while eroding the Pacific partnerships and deterrence architecture the United States needs for long-term mineral security. Bypassing the ISA, and demonstrating that a major power can do so without consequence, threatens the framework that currently constrains Chinese action in the same zones.

The contradiction is already visible in the case of The Metals Company (TMC), a Canadian firm that has held ISA exploration contracts sponsored by Pacific Island countries since 2011. After Washington revived the long-dormant 1980 Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act, TMC moved quickly to apply for U.S. permits over the same seabed areas covered by its ISA contracts.

The result is parallel authorizations from two different legal regimes for the same seabed. Nauru and Tonga went through ISA processes, took on legal responsibilities under international law, and put their credibility on the line as sponsoring states. The United States is now overriding those commitments using a domestic statute of a country that has never ratified UNCLOS. Sponsoring states have been told their participation in the international framework does not matter.

The U.S. approach will not be judged in American courts alone. It will be judged by the Pacific Island countries that sponsor ISA contracts, the 37 nations that have called for a deep-sea mining moratorium, and the broader international community that views the ISA as the legitimate governance structure for the seabed.

The ISA secretary-general’s response to Executive Order 14285 was direct. She called the order “surprising,” noted that the United States has been a reliable observer and significant contributor for over 30 years, and warned that unilateral action “sets a dangerous precedent that could destabilize the entire system of global ocean governance.” When the institution responsible for seabed governance publicly declares that the United States has broken a 30-year cooperative relationship, Pacific Island states hear it.

The ISA framework is currently the primary international constraint on which countries can mine where. If the United States demonstrates that a major power can bypass this system without consequence, it weakens the framework for everyone. 

China Fills the Vacuum

China already holds more ISA exploration contracts than any other country and is actively building bilateral mineral partnerships across the Pacific. A diminished ISA removes the one multilateral structure that also constrains Beijing. The United States may produce the opposite of the intended outcome: a less constrained China operating in a governance vacuum the United States helped create.

China already dominates global critical mineral refining, and its 2024-2025 export restrictions demonstrated a willingness to weaponize that position. However, Beijing’s Pacific strategy extends well beyond processing dominance. China wants to continue its dominance over supply chains by locking in access to new sources of critical minerals – including those found under the sea. 

In February 2025, the Cook Islands and China elevated their relationship to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. The Cook Islands Seabed Minerals Authority signed a memorandum with China’s Ministry of Natural Resources covering exploration and resource management within the Cook Islands’ exclusive economic zone. This was the culmination of nearly two decades of groundwork, including Chinese deep-sea mineral surveys conducted in South Pacific waters as early as 2009.

Kiribati shows what happens when the Western-led system fails a Pacific partner. Its Exclusive Economic Zone spans approximately 3.5 million square kilometers and straddles some of the most strategically significant waters in the central Pacific. In 2015, Kiribati sponsored a TMC subsidiary, Marawa Research, for a 75,000-square-kilometer ISA exploration block. At the end of 2024, the agreement was mutually terminated, with TMC calling Kiribati’s rights “less commercially favorable” than its other contracts. By March 2025, Kiribati was holding talks with Chinese Ambassador Zhou Limin about deep-ocean mineral........

© The Diplomat