While there is a legitimate need to reduce reliance on China for critical minerals, the administration should not bypass an international framework by approving unilateral mining permits in international waters under domestic authority. Doing so sets a dangerous precedent for other countries to unilaterally pursue similar endeavors. This is especially risky in the Indo-Pacific, where China could use such a precedent to expand its incursions against U.S. allies and assert claims over disputed territories under the guise of resource extraction while limiting America’s possible responses. Instead, the U.S. should prioritize spearheading an environmentally guarded international framework with allies, extracting critical minerals from existing resources, and building alternative supply chains that avoid setting a dangerous precedent that others can replicate. This would preserve the maritime status quo and deny China a new justification for gray zone coercion.
Though DSHMRA makes the practice legal under U.S. law, the federal government has never issued permits to mine the international seabed, largely because the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) established the International Seabed Authority (ISA) to govern its exploitation. Despite not being a signatory to UNCLOS, America has generally supported this broader multilateral framework, viewing the steadiness it provided as beneficial for its interest in preserving maritime stability. While the threat of diplomatic pushback and economic retaliation has largely dissuaded states from aggressively pursuing unsubstantiated maritime territorial claims, unilaterally mining the seabed would risk undermining an international framework that has, on balance, supported U.S. interests.
However, China is a threat to the maritime status quo because of its coercive attempts to resolve territorial disputes. While China has refrained from using its military to overtly seize disputed territory, it has resorted to gray zone tactics (actions that exceed accepted norms but are unlikely to be countered with a military response) as a means of asserting its claims while minimizing the risk of military escalation. For instance, it has built artificial islands in the South China Sea, blocked Philippine maritime resupply operations, and used its coast guard and maritime militia to crowd disputed reefs and harass foreign ships with water cannons and lasers. Even its commercial gray zone tactics, like deploying fishing boats into disputed waters, are paramilitary in nature because these ships operate in coordination with its Navy and Coast Guard. While these actions carry less risk than traditional military operations, they have nonetheless pushed countries like the Philippines to seek closer security ties with the United States and could still potentially prompt escalation and trigger a kinetic response.
America unilaterally conducting seabed mining in international waters would provide China with legitimacy in exerting influence over disputed international waters while incurring fewer friction costs. The U.S. would lose significant leverage in criticizing China for gray zone incursions. Past American criticism of these incursions was widely accepted by other states because the U.S. followed and protected the norms that China was violating. If the U.S. similarly violates these norms, such criticism of Chinese violations is no longer credible, which could encourage China to become bolder in staking its territorial claims.
Additionally, unilateral American seabed mining in international waters would allow China to pursue its territorial claims while assuming a lower military risk. Instead of using military-linked vessels to assert its territorial claims, China could deploy commercial mining installations, making PLA involvement harder to trace. Though not eliminating friction costs, such a strategy could reduce the risk of military retaliation against China since other militaries may be less inclined to use force to respond to what is ostensibly non-threatening commercial activity. While the U.S. might have previously been inclined to respond to paramilitary activity with its Navy, policymakers are less likely to use the military as a first response to Chinese commercial action because it would appear disproportionate. If China can deploy mining infrastructure to assert territorial control with significantly less escalatory risks, it could be emboldened to do so with greater frequency.
Perhaps most importantly, mining operations would also allow China to justify longer occupation periods of contested waters. While most Chinese gray zone operations are not designed for long-term sustainment, mining assets are meant to stay in place for extended periods of time. This durable presence would allow China to establish a long-lasting footprint in the territory, ultimately normalizing Chinese activity in disputed areas, creating de facto control zones over time and potentially raising complex questions related to sovereignty and freedom of navigation. This is particularly dangerous because persistent mining infrastructure could be dual use with military applications that threaten U.S. and allied security. In practice, China could use the precedent to place mining assets bordering Philippine or Japanese Exclusive Economic Zones indefinitely and deploy tracking technology that could surveil American submarines and anticipate U.S. Naval activity in the region.
Some may still argue that the U.S. should pursue its seabed mining strategy because the need for critical minerals outweighs these costs. However, the U.S. can create alternative supply chains for critical minerals which do not carry the geopolitical risks associated with international seabed mining. A renegotiated U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement trade framework or narrower minerals side agreement could help anchor more durable supply chains within North America, in concurrence with recent investment in Australia’s rare earth mining industry which could provide America with an alternative source for these materials. These prerogatives, alongside recent rare earth agreements with Japan and the European Union, suggest that countering Chinese mineral dominance is a priority among allies, which could prompt future cooperation to develop stronger allied supply chains.
Similarly promising is a recent study suggesting that reusing 90% of existing unused and wasted material in US mines could supply almost all domestic critical mineral use, and that even a lesser recovery rate would still significantly reduce America’s import needs. Though alternative supply chains take time to develop and are not immediate fixes, the availability to reuse even small amounts of existing material can help reduce imports while these contingencies are developed and new mines are built. Bipartisan legislation like the DOMINANCE Act offers a promising model: it establishes dedicated diplomatic bureaus for mineral supply chains, strengthens allied mineral partnerships by codifying the US-led FORGE coalition into domestic law, and expands domestic production. Adhering to high environmental and legal standards within these multilateral channels not only protects fragile marine ecosystems but also bolsters U.S. diplomatic legitimacy and deprives competitors like China of opportunities to accuse Washington of hypocrisy. To maximize its strategic benefit, however, Congress must ensure that its implementation focuses on these multilateral strengths rather than resorting to unilateral seabed mining permits that incur severe geopolitical costs.
While the appeal of international seabed mineral mining is understandable, unilaterally approving such operations in international waters solely under domestic authority would provide China with a tremendous opportunity to assert its territorial claims without incurring significant costs. If Beijing can normalize quasi-territorial action in international waters without major blowback, then allied and American security will be threatened and U.S. credibility diminished. The U.S. must look beyond short-term industrial gains and avoid making a long-term strategic mistake by working with allies to establish an environmentally guarded, multilateral framework that legitimately governs American resource extraction in international waters.
Louis Derechin is a Nimitz Intern at the Center for Maritime Strategy
The views expressed in this piece are the sole opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Center for Maritime Strategy or other institutions listed.
Center for Maritime Strategy
By Louis Derechin
The U.S. government is pushing to establish an ocean floor mining presence in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, a vast expanse of international waters in the Pacific Ocean rich in minerals including cobalt, manganese, copper, and others that the U.S. and allies rely on for vital national security interests like advanced manufacturing and energy production. Advocates of this proposal argue that it would help reduce America’s dependence on China, which controls around 90% of rare earth processing and refining and was the leading source of dozens of mineral commodities imported to the U.S. from 2020-2023. One company conducted exploratory tests in 2022 and is now seeking final governmental approval to mine the area based on domestic law such as the Deep Seabed Hard Minerals Resources Act (DSHMRA), which allows for American companies to mine international waters with federal approval, and Executive Order 14285, which expedites the permitting approval process.
While there is a legitimate need to reduce reliance on China for critical minerals, the administration should not bypass an international framework by approving unilateral mining permits in international waters under domestic authority. Doing so sets a dangerous precedent for other countries to unilaterally pursue similar endeavors. This is especially risky in the Indo-Pacific, where China could use such a precedent to expand its incursions against U.S. allies and assert claims over disputed territories under the guise of resource extraction while limiting America’s possible responses. Instead, the U.S. should prioritize spearheading an environmentally guarded international framework with allies, extracting critical minerals from existing resources, and building alternative supply chains that avoid setting a dangerous precedent that others can replicate. This would preserve the maritime status quo and deny China a new justification for gray zone coercion.
Though DSHMRA makes the practice legal under U.S. law, the federal government has never issued permits to mine the international seabed, largely because the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) established the International Seabed Authority (ISA) to govern its exploitation. Despite not being a signatory to UNCLOS, America has generally supported this broader multilateral framework, viewing the steadiness it provided as beneficial for its interest in preserving maritime stability. While the threat of diplomatic pushback and economic retaliation has largely dissuaded states from aggressively pursuing unsubstantiated maritime territorial claims, unilaterally mining the seabed would risk undermining an international framework that has, on balance, supported U.S. interests.
However, China is a threat to the maritime status quo because of its coercive attempts to resolve territorial disputes. While China has refrained from using its military to overtly seize disputed territory, it has resorted to gray zone tactics (actions that exceed accepted norms but are unlikely to be countered with a military response) as a means of asserting its claims while minimizing the risk of military escalation. For instance, it has built artificial islands in the South China Sea, blocked Philippine maritime resupply operations, and used its coast guard and maritime militia to crowd disputed reefs and harass foreign ships with water cannons and lasers. Even its commercial gray zone tactics, like deploying fishing boats into disputed waters, are paramilitary in nature because these ships operate in coordination with its Navy and Coast Guard. While these actions carry less risk than traditional military operations, they have nonetheless pushed countries like the Philippines to seek closer security ties with the United States and could still potentially prompt escalation and trigger a kinetic response.
America unilaterally conducting seabed mining in international waters would provide China with legitimacy in exerting influence over disputed international waters while incurring fewer friction costs. The U.S. would lose significant leverage in criticizing China for gray zone incursions. Past American criticism of these incursions was widely accepted by other states because the U.S. followed and protected the norms that China was violating. If the U.S. similarly violates these norms, such criticism of Chinese violations is no longer credible, which could encourage China to become bolder in staking its territorial claims.
Additionally, unilateral American seabed mining in international waters would allow China to pursue its territorial claims while assuming a lower military risk. Instead of using military-linked vessels to assert its territorial claims, China could deploy commercial mining installations, making PLA involvement harder to trace. Though not eliminating friction costs, such a strategy could reduce the risk of military retaliation against China since other militaries may be less inclined to use force to respond to what is ostensibly non-threatening commercial activity. While the U.S. might have previously been inclined to respond to paramilitary activity with its Navy, policymakers are less likely to use the military as a first response to Chinese commercial action because it would appear disproportionate. If China can deploy mining infrastructure to assert territorial control with significantly less escalatory risks, it could be emboldened to do so with greater frequency.
Perhaps most importantly, mining operations would also allow China to justify longer occupation periods of contested waters. While most Chinese gray zone operations are not designed for long-term sustainment, mining assets are meant to stay in place for extended periods of time. This durable presence would allow China to establish a long-lasting footprint in the territory, ultimately normalizing Chinese activity in disputed areas, creating de facto control zones over time and potentially raising complex questions related to sovereignty and freedom of navigation. This is particularly dangerous because persistent mining infrastructure could be dual use with military applications that threaten U.S. and allied security. In practice, China could use the precedent to place mining assets bordering Philippine or Japanese Exclusive Economic Zones indefinitely and deploy tracking technology that could surveil American submarines and anticipate U.S. Naval activity in the region.
Some may still argue that the U.S. should pursue its seabed mining strategy because the need for critical minerals outweighs these costs. However, the U.S. can create alternative supply chains for critical minerals which do not carry the geopolitical risks associated with international seabed mining. A renegotiated U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement trade framework or narrower minerals side agreement could help anchor more durable supply chains within North America, in concurrence with recent investment in Australia’s rare earth mining industry which could provide America with an alternative source for these materials. These prerogatives, alongside recent rare earth agreements with Japan and the European Union, suggest that countering Chinese mineral dominance is a priority among allies, which could prompt future cooperation to develop stronger allied supply chains.
Similarly promising is a recent study suggesting that reusing 90% of existing unused and wasted material in US mines could supply almost all domestic critical mineral use, and that even a lesser recovery rate would still significantly reduce America’s import needs. Though alternative supply chains take time to develop and are not immediate fixes, the availability to reuse even small amounts of existing material can help reduce imports while these contingencies are developed and new mines are built. Bipartisan legislation like the DOMINANCE Act offers a promising model: it establishes dedicated diplomatic bureaus for mineral supply chains, strengthens allied mineral partnerships by codifying the US-led FORGE coalition into domestic law, and expands domestic production. Adhering to high environmental and legal standards within these multilateral channels not only protects fragile marine ecosystems but also bolsters U.S. diplomatic legitimacy and deprives competitors like China of opportunities to accuse Washington of hypocrisy. To maximize its strategic benefit, however, Congress must ensure that its implementation focuses on these multilateral strengths rather than resorting to unilateral seabed mining permits that incur severe geopolitical costs.
While the appeal of international seabed mineral mining is understandable, unilaterally approving such operations in international waters solely under domestic authority would provide China with a tremendous opportunity to assert its territorial claims without incurring significant costs. If Beijing can normalize quasi-territorial action in international waters without major blowback, then allied and American security will be threatened and U.S. credibility diminished. The U.S. must look beyond short-term industrial gains and avoid making a long-term strategic mistake by working with allies to establish an environmentally guarded, multilateral framework that legitimately governs American resource extraction in international waters.
Louis Derechin is a Nimitz Intern at the Center for Maritime Strategy
The views expressed in this piece are the sole opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Center for Maritime Strategy or other institutions listed.