Trump sparks up row with executive order on deep-sea mining.

Donald Trump on Thursday, April 25, 2025, signed a controversial executive order.

According to the BBC, this order is aimed at stepping up deep-sea mining within US and in international waters.

Thursday’s order is the latest issued by the US president.

Its aim is to try to increase America’s access to minerals used by the aerospace, green technology and healthcare sectors.

The deep sea contains billions of tonnes of potato-shaped rocks, called polymetallic nodules.

These nodules are rich in critical minerals like cobalt and rare earths.

Many other countries and environmental groups oppose deep-sea mining in international waters without further research.

The latest US executive order was issued to “establish the United States as a global leader in responsible sea-bed mineral exploration”.

The move appears to bypass a long-running round of UN negotiations on mining in international waters.

The BBC quoted the Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun as saying:

“The US authorisation… violates international law and harms the overall interests of the international community,”

China dominates the production of rare earths and critical metals like cobalt and lithium.

Analysts say that Trump has been frustrated by this relative weakness of the US position.

“We want the US to get ahead of China in this resource space under the ocean, on the ocean bottom,” a US official said on Thursday.

To achieve this, the order says the US will speed up the process of issuing exploration licences and recovery permits.

It states that this will go on, both in its own waters and in “areas beyond national jurisdiction”.

The administration estimates that deep-sea mining could boost the country’s GDP by $300bn (£225bn) over 10 years.

It is also projected to be able to create 100,000 jobs

The EU, the UK and others support a moratorium on the practice until further scientific research is carried out.

Environmentalists and scientists are concerned that undiscovered species living in the deep sea could be harmed by the process.

“Deep-sea mining is a deeply dangerous endeavour for our ocean,” said Jeff Watters of Ocean Conservancy, a US-based environmental group.

He added in a statement released on Friday:

“The harm caused by deep-sea mining isn’t restricted to the ocean floor: it will impact the entire water column, top to bottom, and everyone and everything relying on it,”

It is not clear how quickly deep-sea mining could begin but one mining company, The Metals Company (TMC), has already applied for permits in international waters.

TMC’s CEO Gerard Barron has previously said he hopes to begin mining by the end of the year.

Along with others in the mining industry, he disputes the environmental claims made and has argued that the abyssal zone – 3,000m to 6,000m below sea level – has very low concentrations of life.

“Here there’s zero flora. And if we measure the amount of fauna [animal life], in the form of biomass, there is around 10g per square metre.

That compares with more than 30kg of biomass where the world is pushing more nickel extraction, which is our equatorial rainforests,” he previously told the BBC.

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