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Trump's Push On Deep Sea Mining Imperils Nauru's Commercial Ambitions
Teuila Fuatai, RNZ Pacific Senior Journalist
Nauru's ambition to commercially mine the seabed is likely at risk following President Donald Trump's executive order aimed at fast-tracking ocean mining, anti-deep sea mining advocates warn.
The order also increases instability in the Pacific region because it effectively circumvents long-standing international sea laws and processes by providing an alternative path to mine the seabed, advocates say.
Titled Unleashing America's Offshore Critical Minerals and Resources, the order was signed by Trump on 25 April. It directs the US science and environmental agency to expedite permits for companies to mine the ocean floor in US and international waters.
It has been condemned by legal and environmental experts around the world, particularly after Canadian mining group The Metals Company announced Tuesday it had applied to commercially mine in international waters through the US process.
The Metals Company has so far been unsuccessful in gaining a commercial mining licence through the International Seabed Authority (ISA).
Currently, the largest area in international waters being explored for commercial deep sea mining is the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, located in the central Pacific Ocean. The vast area sits between Hawaii, Kiribati and Mexico, and spans 4.5 million square kilometres.
The area is of high commercial interest because it has an abundance of polymetallic nodules that contain valuable metals like cobalt, nickel, manganese and copper, which are used to make products such as smartphones and electric batteries. The minerals are also used in weapons manufacturing.
Under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the Clarion-Clipperton Zone falls under the jurisdiction of the ISA, which was established in 1994. That legislation states that any benefits from minerals extracted in its jurisdiction must be for "humankind as a whole".
Nauru - alongside Tonga, Kiribati and the Cook Islands - has interests in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone after being allocated blocks of the area through UNCLOS. They are known as sponsor states.
In total, there are 19 sponsor states in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone.
Nauru and The Metals Company
Since 2011, Nauru has partnered with The Metals Company to explore and assess its block in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone for commercial mining activity.
It has done this through an ISA exploration licence.
At the same time, the ISA, which counts all Pacific nations among its 169-strong membership, has also been developing a commercial mining code. That process began in 2014 and is ongoing.
The process has been criticised by The Metals Company as effectively blocking it and Nauru's commercial mining interests.
Both have sought to advance their respective interests in different ways.
In 2021, Nauru took the unprecedented step of utilising a "two-year" notification period to initiate an exploitation licencing process under the ISA, even though a commercial seabed mining code was still being developed.
An ISA commercial mining code, once finalised, is expected to provide the legal and technical regulations for exploitation of the seabed.
However, according to international law, in the absence of a code, should a plan for exploitation be submitted to the ISA, the body is required to provisionally accept it within two years of its submission.
While Nauru ultimately delayed enforcing the two-year rule, it remains the only state to ever invoke it under the ISA. It has also stated that it is "comfortable with being a leader on these issues". To date, the ISA has not issued a licence for exploitation of the seabed.
Meanwhile, The Metals Company has emphasised the economic potential of deep sea mining and its readiness to begin commercial activities. It has also highlighted the potential value of minerals sitting on the seabed in Nauru's block in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone.
"[The block represents] 22 percent of The Metals Company's estimated resource in the [Clarion-Clipperton Zone and] … is ranked as having the largest underdeveloped nickel deposit in the world," the company states on its website.
Its announcement Tuesday revealed it had filed three applications for mining activity in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone under the US pathway. One application is for a commercial mining permit. Two are for exploration permits.
The announcement added further fuel to warnings from anti-deep sea mining advocates that The Metals Company is pivoting away from Nauru and arrangements under the ISA.
Last year, the company stated it intended to submit a plan for commercial mining to the ISA on 27 June so it could begin exploitation operations by 2026.
This date appears to have been usurped by developments under Trump, with the company saying on Tuesday that its US permit application "advances [the company's] timeline ahead" of that date.
The Trump factor
Trump's recent executive order is critical to this because it specifically directs relevant US government agencies to reactivate the country's own deep sea mining licence process that had largely been unused over the past 40 years.
That legislation, the Deep Sea Hard Mineral Resources Act, states the US can grant mining permits in international waters. It was implemented in 1980 as a temporary framework while the US worked towards ratifying the UNCLOS Treaty. Since then, only four exploration licences have been issued under the legislation. To date, the US is yet to ratify UNCLOS.
At face value, the Deep Sea Hard Mineral Resources Act offers an alternative licencing route to commercial seabed activity in the high seas to the ISA. However, any cross-over between jurisdictions and authorities remains untested.
Now, The Metals Company appears to be operating under both in the same area of international waters - the Clarion-Clipperton Zone.
Deep Sea Conservation Coalition's Pacific regional coordinator Phil McCabe said it was unclear what would happen to Nauru.
"This announcement really appears to put Nauru as a partner of the company out in the cold," McCabe said.
"If The Metals Company moves through the US process, it appears that there is no mechanism or no need for any benefit to go to the Pacific Island sponsoring states because they sponsor through the ISA, not the US," he said.
McCabe, who is based in Aotearoa, highlighted extensive investment The Metals Company had poured into the Nauru block over more than 10 years.
He said it was in the company's financial interests to begin commercial mining as soon as possible.
"If The Metals Company was going to submit an application through the US law, it would have to have a good measure of environmental data on the area that it wants to mine, and the only area that it has that data [for] is the Nauru block," McCabe said.
He also pointed out that the size of the Nauru block The Metals Company had worked on in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone was the same as a block it wanted to commercially mine through US legislation.
Both are exactly 25,160 square kilometres, McCabe said.
RNZ Pacific asked The Metals Company to clarify whether its US application applied to Nauru and Tonga's blocks. The company said it would "be able to confirm details of the blocks in the coming weeks".
It also said it intended to retain its exploration contracts through the ISA that were sponsored by Nauru and Tonga, respectively.
Pacific Ocean a 'new frontier'
Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG) associate Maureen Penjueli had similar observations to McCabe regarding the potential impacts of Trump's executive order.
Trump's order, and The Metals Company ongoing insistence to commercially mine the ocean, was directly related to escalating geopolitical competition, she told RNZ Pacific.
"There are a handful of minerals that are quite critical for all kinds of weapons development, from tankers to armour like nuclear weapons, submarines, aircraft," she said.
Currently, the supply and processing of minerals in that market, which includes iron, lithium, copper, cobalt and graphite, is dominated by China.
Between 40 and 90 percent of the world's rare earth minerals are processed by China, Penjueli said. The variation is due to differences between individual minerals.
As a result, both Europe and the US are heavily dependent on China for these minerals, which according to Penjueli, has massive implications.
"On land, you will see the US Department of Defense really trying to seek alternative [mineral] sources," Penjueli said.
"Now, it's extended to minerals in the seabed, both within [a country's exclusive economic zone], but also in areas beyond national jurisdictions, such as the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, which is here in the Pacific. That is around the geopolitical [competition] … and the US versus China positioning."
Notably, Trump's executive order on the US seabed mining licence process highlights the country's reliance on overseas mineral supply, particularly regarding security and defence implications.
He said the US wanted to advance its leadership in seabed mineral development by "strengthening partnerships with allies and industry to counter China's growing influence over seabed mineral resources".
The Metals Company and the US
She believed The Metals Company had become increasingly focused on security and defence needs.
Initially, the company had framed commercial deep sea mining as essential for the world's transition to green energies, she said. It had used that language when referring to its relationships with Pacific states like Nauru, Penjueli said.
However, the company had also begun pitching US policy makers under the Biden administration over the need to acquire critical minerals from the seabed to meet US security and defence needs, she said.
Since Trump's re-election, it had also made a series of public announcements praising US government decisions that prioritised deep sea mining development for defence and security purposes.
In a press release on Trump's executive order, The Metals Company chief executive Gerard Barron said the company had enough knowledge to manage the environmental risks of deep sea mining.
"Over the last decade, we've invested over half a billion dollars to understand and responsibly develop the nodule resource in our contract areas," Barron said.
"We built the world's largest environmental dataset on the [Clarion-Clipperton Zone], carefully designed and tested an off-shore collection system that minimises the environmental impacts and followed every step required by the International Seabed Authority.
"What we need is a regulator with a robust regulatory regime, and who is willing to give our application a fair hearing. That's why we've formally initiated the process of applying for licenses and permits under the existing US seabed mining code," Barron said.
The Metals Company directed RNZ Pacific to a statement on its website in response to an interview request.
The statement, signed by Barron, said the ISA was being influenced by a faction of states aligned with environmental NGOs that opposed the deep sea mining industry.
Barron also disputed any contraventions of international law under the US regime, and said the country has had "a fully developed regulatory regime" for commercial seabed mining since 1989.
"The ISA has neither the mining code nor the willingness to engage with their commercial contractors," Barron said. "In full compliance with international law, we are committed to delivering benefits to our developing state partners."
'It's an America-first move'
Despite Barron's observations, Penjueli and McCabe believed The Metals Company and the US were side-stepping international law, placing Pacific nations at risk.
McCabe said Pacific nations benefitted from UNCLOS, which gives rights over vast oceanic territories.
"It's an America-first move," said McCabe who believes the actions of The Minerals Company and the US are also a contravention of international law.
There are also significant concerns that Trump's executive order has effectively triggered a race to mine the Pacific seabed for minerals that will be destined for military purposes like weapons systems manufacturing, Penjueli said.
Unlike UNCLOS, the US deep sea mining legislation does not stipulate that minerals from international waters must be used for peaceful purposes.
Deep Sea Conservation Coalition's Duncan Currie believes this is another tricky legal point for Nauru and other sponsor states in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone.
For example, should Nauru enter a commercial mining arrangement with The Metals Company and the US under US mining legislation, any royalties that may eventuate could potentially contravene international law, Currie said.
First, the process would be outside the ISA framework, he said.
Second, UNCLOS states that any benefits from seabed mining in international waters must benefit all of "humankind".
Therefore, Currie said, royalties earned in a process that cannot be scrutinised by the ISA likely did not meet that stipulation.
Third, he said, if the extracted minerals are used for military purposes - which was a focus of Trump's executive order - then it likely violates the principle that the seabed should only be exploited for peaceful purposes.
"There really are a host of very difficult legal issues that arise," he added.
The road ahead
Now more than ever, anti-deep sea mining advocates believe a moratorium on the practice is necessary.
Penjueli, echoing Currie's concerns, said there was too much uncertainty with two potential avenues to commercial mining.
"The moratorium call is quite urgent at this point," she said.
"We simply don't know what [these developments] mean right now. What are the implications if The Metals Company decides to dump its Pacific state sponsored partners? What does it mean for the legal tenements that they hold in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone?"
In that instance, Nauru, which has spearheaded the push for commercial seabed mining alongside The Metals Company, may be particularly exposed.
Currently, more than 30 countries have declared support for a moratorium on deep sea mining. Among them are Palau, Fiji, Samoa, the Federated States of Micronesia, Vanuatu, Tuvalu, and New Caledonia.
On the other hand, Nauru, Kiribati, Tonga, and the Cook Islands all support deep sea mining.
Australia has not explicitly called for a moratorium on the practice, but it has also refrained from supporting it.
New Zealand supported a moratorium on deep sea mining under the previous Labour government. The current government is reportedly reconsidering this stance.
RNZ Pacific contacted the Nauru government for comment but did not receive a response.
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