Are Trump and TMC playing cowboys with the international seabed? 

Deep-sea minerals firm The Metals Company (TMC) has announced it is seeking to bypass international law and begin seabed mining in the high seas through a permit secured under United States (US) law. 

This proposal poses a major challenge to responsible seabed governance and more broadly, a global rules-based order.  

So how did we get here and what may this mean for the future of the international seabed? 

Tension: The US and the international seabed regime 

In 1982 the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) opened for signature, providing what is effectively the constitution for global ocean activities. UNCLOS is the cornerstone document of international law governing global ocean activities, including activities in the international seabed (i.e. the ocean-floor below the high seas).  

Since its establishment, UNCLOS has been ratified by 170 state parties, including the European Union, who are obliged to its provisions – at least theoretically.  

The US, however, never ratified the treaty, citing concerns over several seabed minerals provisions; two of which are particularly pertinent to the current situation with TMC:   

• First, that UNCLOS curtailed the freedom of the US to mine the seabed for “strategic and other minerals”.  

• Second, that requirements for technology transfer to a global seabed mining body (The Enterprise) undercut US strategic interests and industry.  

These concerns reveal how Washington has long prioritised US strategic minerals interests above collective and coordinated global oceans governance. Perhaps more subtly, they also imply that America has been prepared to undercut a global rules-based order on the grounds of seabed minerals for decades.  

This simmering risk has now risen to the surface, with the Trump administration entertaining TMC’s plan to flout the global seabed minerals system and commence mining outside international law.  

But why is TMC now seeking this back-door route to seabed mining approval? What has led TMC to Trump? 

Pressure: TMC and the international seabed regime 

Since 2001, the ISA has been issuing exploration contracts for plots of the international seafloor (the Area) for activities including resource surveying, technology testing and environmental studies. TMC, then known as DeepGreen, secured its first exploration contract from ISA in 2011 through an agreement between its wholly-owned subsidiary Nauru Ocean Resources Inc. (NORI) and the Nauru Government as sponsoring state.  

From a seabed mining perspective, however, the ISA has not yet permitted exploitation activities on the international seafloor, such as large-scale seabed minerals extraction for commercial or strategic purposes. This is in large part due to the absence of international seabed mining regulations.  

The ISA began the process of negotiating seabed mining rules and processes in 2014, with draft regulations first submitted to its Council in 2019. This was welcomed by seabed mining proponents, who recognised these regulations as a critical step towards the realisation of an international seabed mining regime.  

Fast forward two years and the ISA had made only modest progress on the Mining Code, which was somewhat unsurprising given the complexity of governance issues, the diversity of its global membership, and still limited scientific knowledge of deep-sea ecosystems and the impacts mining may have on them.  

Frustrated by the ISA’s perceived ‘slowness’, TMC and Nauru invoked a legal loophole known as the ‘two-year rule’ in June 2021. This sought to fast-track the finalisation and adoption of the Mining Code by calling on a provision in UNCLOS that requires ISA to complete the negotiation and adoption of seabed mining regulations within two years.   

Refusing to be rushed, the ISA has stood firm and continued to dictate its own timeline for the Mining Code. These regulations remain under negotiation, with multiple key matters yet to be resolved, including the most contentious of all, benefit-sharing.  

TMC’s efforts to shoehorn the global community into an international regime for seabed mining has failed. This is the primary – yet perhaps not the only – reason for its courting of Trump and the current US administration to facilitate its seabed mining aspirations.  

An alternate path: TMC and the US 

As of March this year, TMC has initiated a process with the US Department of Commerce to apply for “commercial recovery permits” under the 1980 Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act (DSHMRA). If approved, this will enable TMC to commence mining in the international seabed outside of international law in a quasi-parallel system established by the US.  

Four exploration licences have been issued under America’s DSHMRA to date, all in the minerals rich seabed of the Clarion Clipperton Zone. Two of these remain active and are both held by defence company Lockheed Martin.  

The granting of seabed mining permits through the US would also see TMC operate within the legal and governance systems of a single state, rather than being accountable to the international community. The potential economic advantages of this stakeholder streamlining should not be overlooked: quite simply, less parties mean that less pieces of the profit ‘pie’ need to be cut and distributed away from TMC coffers.  

For all of America’s claims about “responsible” seafloor use, it remains that any activities conducted through such a system sit outside of international law – recalling that the US has not ratified UNCLOS. Such initiatives would undermine collective, global efforts on seabed governance, erode the authority of the ISA, and set a precedent for internationally unregulated seabed mining. 

For the sponsoring states of TMC – Nauru and Tonga – this announcement is even more worrying. Without obligation to work within the international system of the ISA, TMC has little need for its Pacific partners to secure seabed mining permits. This risks Nauru and Tonga being seen as redundant partners – if not a drag on commercial efficiency.  

What role these Pacific partners will play in TMC’s seabed mining endeavours if licences are secured through US regulations remains uncertain. This issue may well test the “excellent” relationship between these parties. 

Common heritage or wild west? 

TMC’s negotiations with the Trump administration are major and urgent concern for responsible seabed governance. It may lead to the world’s first seabed mining project in the international Area – an area that is recognised as the “common heritage of (hu)mankind”.  

Such common heritage requires global management. It cannot be used as a playground for commercial companies and bullish governments to play out their cowboy fantasies as if the seabed were some lawless wild west.  

A collective effort is needed to challenge this reckless proposal.   

Philippa Louey is a Research Fellow at the Pacific Security College. She completed a PhD from the Department of Pacific Affairs, Australian National University in 2025 examining the politics of sustainable ocean development agendas in the Pacific.  

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Views expressed via the Pacific Wayfinder blog are not necessarily those of the Pacific Security College.

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