Trump pushes for faster offshore mining to access critical minerals
US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order intended to accelerate offshore mining and open new opportunities for extracting critical materials from the ocean floor despite the objections of environmentalists.
The measure directs the Commerce Department to speed up reviewing and issuing permits for exploration and commercial recovery under a 1980 law, according to senior White House officials who briefed journalists on the action, News.Az reports, citing Bloomberg.
While the permits could cover territory far beyond the US Outer Continental Shelf, the president is also setting in motion potential seabed mining within US coastal waters. Under Trump’s order, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum is charged with establishing a process for approving permits and granting licenses for seabed mining in US waters, under the same law that has long governed oil drilling there.
The White House in a fact sheet cast the order as one of several steps Trump has taken “positioning the United States at the forefront of critical mineral production and innovation.”
The president is also ordering a raft of reports, including a study of using the US National Defense Stockpile for minerals contained within sea deposits and an assessment of private-sector interest in the activity.
The order directs the US International Development Finance Corporation and the US Export-Import Bank to study options for providing financing and other support for exploration, extraction, processing and environmental monitoring of seabed resources.
Trump’s directive comes amid increasing concern over new Chinese curbs on the export of rare-earth materials used in electric vehicle batteries, smartphones and other technology, a response to Trump’s tariffs. China’s moves have generated worries about obtaining alternate supplies for the metals given the country’s dominance in mining and refining them.
The executive order drew fire from Beijing. Trump’s plan breaks international law because it will apply to areas of the sea floor that “do not belong to any country,” China Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said on Friday at a daily press briefing.
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