Bending to industry, Donald Trump issues executive order to “expedite” deep sea mining

Donald Trump wants to remove the depths of the ocean for critical minerals everywhere in rechargeable batteries, and signing an executive order on Thursday to try to accelerate mining inside the United States and international waters.

It is a noisy step that critics say can create an unknown chaos of marine life and coastal economies, which bark international agreements. The talks to develop mining bases in the depths of the seas continues through the International Sea Football Authority (ISA), a process that was absent from the initial date of 2023 and continued to overcome the efforts made to start commercial mining in the depths of the seas.

“Rapid mining in the depths of the seas by overcoming the global organizational processes of ISA science will determine a dangerous precedent and will be a violation of customary international law,” said Denkan Curie, the legal advisor to the deep seas preservation coalition, which called for the endowment to stop cleaning in the depths of the seas.

ISA was established by the 1982 United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea. More than 160 countries have believed the agreement, but the United States did not do so. Imprisoning the agreement, the executive order to sign the federal agencies to accelerate the process of issuing licenses for companies that seek to recover minerals “in areas that exceed the national judicial jurisdiction” in accordance with the solid metal resources law at the bottom of the United States of 1980. The regional jurisdiction in a country is only 200 nautical miles from the beach.

The executive thing says that the Trump administration wants to work with the industry “to counter China’s growing influence on mineral resources at the sea floor.” However, any country has yet to trade in the deep ocean with the depths of about 656 feet (200 meters) in international waters. There were already efforts to explore parts of the Nickel -rich ocean, copper, cobalt, iron and manganese required for rechargeable batteries, and China is a leading strainer in many critical metals.

China responded on Friday: Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ghiakoun said that Trump’s move “violates international law and harms the total interests of the international community.”

The Mineral Company announced in March that the Canadian company had “already met with officials of the White House” and planned to apply for permits under the current US Mining Law to start extracting minerals from the high seas.

The impossible company in California asked the Trump administration earlier this month from the auction of rental contracts for regions off the American Samoa coast, which will be inside the United States -controlled water. Trump’s executive order is also directed by the Minister of Interior to accelerate the process of renting mining areas inside American waters.

Companies that seek to exploit mineral resources abroad will argue that they will cause less damage to mining on the ground. Their opponents claim that there is still little research even to understand the extent of the spread of mining traces in the depths of the seas on marine ecosystems and the people who depend on them. Recent studies have warned of “irreversible” damage and the noisy noise that affects marine life, and one of the controversial studies raises questions about whether the depths of the seas could be an important source of “dark oxygen” for the world.

More than 30 countries-including Palau, Fiji, Costa Rica, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, New Zealand, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom-have been banned or stood on the depths of the seas until international rules are set to reduce possible damage.

“The damage caused by deep mining in the sea is not limited to the ocean bottom: it will affect the entire watercoule, from top to bottom, and from everyone and everything depends on,” said Jeff Wattars, Vice president for Foreign Affairs in the Non -profit ocean governorate.