‘Largest seabed mining proposal in US history’ would cover an area the size of Nevada on either side of the Northern Marianas.
By Mar-Vic Cagurangan for RFA
TAMUNING, Guam – A U.S. plan to potentially mine an area of Pacific seabed roughly the size of Nevada near two U.S. territories is the latest example of increasing competition in the region between the United States and China, a local government official told Radio Free Asia.
The zones of seabed marked off for potential development total 69 million acres (280,000 square kilometers) in two distinct geographical areas east and west of the Northern Mariana Islands and Guam.
“In both areas, the primary minerals for commercial development include potential commercially viable quantities of cobalt, nickel, copper, manganese, zinc, rare earth elements, along with other minerals that may prove economically viable to extract and process in the future,” Douglas Boren, the Pacific regional director for the U.S. The Department of Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, or BOEM, stated in a March 13 memo detailing the plan.
In the same memo, Boren said that the Trump administration recognizes an “overreliance” on foreign-sourced minerals and the products that use them, potentially jeopardizing “U.S. defense capabilities, infrastructure development and technological innovation.”
Boren cited executive orders that direct the Department of Interior to expedite mineral development in the region, including one signed by the president on April 24, 2025, which emphasized “strengthening partnerships with allies and industry to counter China’s growing influence over seabed mineral resources.”
The memo specified that the areas identified would be subject to “environmental analyses conducted for the proposed lease offering.” meaning that parts of the two tracts might be omitted from the area to be leased. It also acknowledged concerns from those opposed to the undersea mining proposal, including potential harms to fisheries, tourism and the environment.
Geopolitics at play
Sen. William Parkinson of the Guam legislature noted that the race to explore the ocean floor is driven by a broader strategic contest unfolding across the Indo-Pacific.
“Guam is very much on the front line of it,” Parkinson told RFA. “There are environmental concerns about deep-sea mining, and those are real.”
Parkinson said the concern over China’s increasing influence in the Pacific goes beyond mining.
“When vessels tied to the Chinese state are repeatedly surveying waters near Guam and other strategic corridors, we have to ask not only what minerals they are interested in, but what military advantage they may be seeking,” he said, adding that competition between Washington and Beijing carries echoes of World War II, when Guam was part of the Pacific Theater campaign.
Reuters and other news outlets reported this week that in addition to surveying for minerals, China is mapping the seabed, and the data has military applications, according to naval experts.
Beyond being one variable in the larger arena of strategic competition with China, undersea mining is also big bucks. The emerging industry has a potential valuation as high as US$20 trillion according to the Belgium-based management consulting firm Arthur D. Little.
Local opposition
But people living in Guam and the Northern Marianas feel like their concerns are not being heard, Guam’s Governor Lou Leon Guerrero said in response to the March 13 memo.
“We are disappointed that, in all our attempts to engage with BOEM throughout this process, they have not considered and have ignored the very people who are most affected by their actions,” she said. “We will show up on every front to make sure that our concerns are heard and that our oceans are protected.”
Last year, the Guam and Northern Marianas legislatures separately adopted resolutions calling for a moratorium on deep-sea mining in the waters around the islands. Federal decisions, however, supersede local legislative actions.
To speed up the leasing of marked areas, the BOEM streamlined the permitting process and removed territorial governments from the decision-making process.
Guerrero said the plan was “driven by industry interest” at the expense of “environment, biodiversity, fisheries, tourism, public health, national security and regional relations.”
The proposal ignores the people and governments of nearby areas, Angelo Villagomez, a researcher at the Center for American Progress in Washington, told RFA. He criticized pushing forward “an industrial experiment in one of the most biodiverse and culturally significant ocean regions on Earth.”
“This decision to advance the largest seabed mining proposal in U.S. history ignores the overwhelming concerns voiced by the people and local governments. Deep sea mining poses irreversible risks to fragile ecosystems, fisheries that sustain our communities, and the cultural heritage of the Chamorro and Refaluwasch peoples,” he said, referring to two ethnic groups living in the Marianas.
Beyond the Northern Marianas and Guam, Washington has begun engaging with the governments of the Cook Islands, Tonga and Nauru to forge seabed mining partnerships. Though no commercial mining has begun, the International Seabed Authority has issued several contracts in the Clarion-Clipperton zone, an area between Hawaii and Mexico which is known to host the world’s largest polymetallic deposits, but also an abundance of biodiverse sea life. Most awarded contracts in the zone are sponsored by Nauru and Tonga.
Meanwhile in an area of seabed near the Solomon Islands, another U.S. Pacific territory, mining exploration activities are already underway.
Deposits there contain an estimated 10 billion tons of high-grade ore, offering a significant, strategically located U.S. offshore source of nickel, cobalt, manganese, and copper, according to John Wasko, executive director of the American Samoa Development Council.
“China has a monopoly on terrestrial refining. Why bother?” Wasko told RFA, explaining that the U.S. has the potential to produce rare earth elements in a more sustainable way than by using the “old and dirty” technology in Chinese rare earth refineries.
Chinese monopoly
According to the Canadian government, China mines 69% of the global total of rare earths annually, with the U.S. a distant second at 12%. China also has a 90% monopoly on refining, where rare earth elements used in everyday items like cellular phones, cars, and solar panels are separated from the mined ore.
Though most of China’s rare earth production comes from terrestrial mines, it is also trying to increase its rare earth mining capabilities in the seas to possibly expand on its dominance of the rare earths market.
Parkinson expressed concern that the increasing competition between large powers was turning the Pacific into “a chessboard where island communities are pushed aside.”
“The Pacific must remain in the hands of Pacific Islanders,” he said. “We cannot allow the blue continent to be treated as a warehouse of raw materials or a covert battlespace. Our people, our environment, and our security all demand better than that.”
Edited by Eugene Whong.
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