L’America first From Donald Trump, it is also often America alone against the rest of the world. Eclipped by an end of electoral marathon and papal funerals, its stranglehold on the potential trade in the mining resources of the great seabed – untouched so far wherever it is on the planet – is a patent example.
Several allies and natural enemies of the United States have been outraged by their sovereign, seeing it as well a contempt-another! – International law that a resounding slap – one more! – instead of scientific consensus. The reason for their legitimate wrath? A decree signed last Thursday which intends to make the United States a leader in the exploration and development of minerals of the seabed. In their national jurisdiction, of course, but also far beyond.
In the same breath, Donald Trump pressed the American oceanic and atmospheric observation agency (NOAA)-which he has promised heavily to define-to accelerate the granting of companies that wish to exploit mines in international waters and American territorial waters. The United States estimates that underwater mining could create 100,000 jobs and increase the GDP by ten years by $ 300 billion.
Uncertain and distant, all that? If only.
In fact, it is jostling nicely at the gate to launch the machine. On the starting line, the first aspiring to assert being able (and wanting) to get wet is a company based in Vancouver. The Metals Company has already spent 500 million in exploratory research. Taking advantage of the door opened by Trump, the Canadian company announced on Tuesday that it had filed a mining request in international waters. In its sights: plots covering more than 25,000 km2 In the Clarion-Clipperton area in the Pacific, which is full of polymetallic nodules rich in strategic minerals for the energy transition.
Of course, the United States is not the only ones to dream of getting into this enticing dish of candy-hearing tons and tons of critical metals here and nickel, cobalt, copper and manganese, but also rare elements of which China and Russia make an ultra-road market to the point that it is deemed abusive by those who make it.
These two powers are considering taking the plunge in the United States. Ditto for Norway. But now, the consensus on the planet was – at least until last week – that it was better not to touch the seabed, period. Automobile and technology industry (think of Google, Volkswagen, BMW or Samsung), but also banks deemed like Lloyds, categorically refuse to do business with such an industry, however embryonic.
Countries like Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom or Brazil even actively support the maintenance of a moratorium or minimally a break from the exploitation of the great seabed. France advocates its outright ban. It is the International Marine Fund Authority (AIFM), which has a jurisdiction on the seabed of international waters, which will decide on the following.
Founded in 1994, The structure brings together 169 Member States in addition to the 27 states of the European Union. Not the United States, which rely on an obscure law of the 1980s to give the impetus to a large-scale underwater mining. The AIFM, which is slow to give birth to a coherent mining code, took note of the Trumpian provocation by recalling that the agreement governing the seabed exists “precisely to prevent unilateral actions and parallel tracks”.
The precipitation of the American president therefore exposes him not only to consequences, but could also have significant repercussions on this largely unknown ecosystem. Ocean Census estimates that only 250,000 species out of the two million people who would populate the oceans are known. Riding there could have the consequence of renouncing the discovery of species and resources to date unknown.
The abyss also play an important role in storing CO2. Disturbing them could sustainably shake their operation. On the contrary, some countries argue that this type of exploitation could be an asset in the energy transition. These contradictory hypotheses remain to be document.
Before thinking of distributing permits to exploit the seabed, you should have at least had the chance to study them properly. But now, Donald Trump kicked off a race for which we are not ready.
The most disturbing in haste that you feel going around the world (nobody likes to lose a race, and it feels) is that this industry could prove to be overwhelmed before even delivering its first fruits, thank you to the battery sector which seeks to decrease if not to bypass its appetites for certain metals.
Trumpian voracity does not care and opens the door to an anarchic exploitation guided by the law of the most whimsical, with, in the end, a handful of potential winners and many, many losers insured.
