The ship is located thousands of meters above a seafloor that has never been completely mapped, somewhere in the Pacific. There are rocks beneath it in almost complete darkness. Mineral-rich, avocado-shaped, and untouched for millions of years. Additionally, The Metals Company, or TMC, wishes to discuss them. When you put it simply, it sounds almost ridiculous. However, the closer you look, the more difficult it is to ignore.
In the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, a region of the Pacific floor about the size of the continental United States, TMC has spent more than ten years developing a scientific and practical case for deep-sea nodule collection. The company believes they have addressed the most challenging questions after 22 offshore campaigns and what they call one of the largest deep-sea environmental datasets ever assembled. The metals found in those nodules—cobalt, manganese, nickel, and copper—power military equipment, electric cars, and battery supply chains, all of which Beijing and Washington are secretly freaking out over. Observing all of this, it seems as though the race was inevitable. Who would be the first to make it feasible was the only question.
Technology did not arrive as quickly as geopolitics. The prime minister of the Cook Islands, a tiny nation of 15,000 people in the south Pacific, Mark Brown, traveled to the frozen Chinese city of Harbin in February 2025 and returned with a nine-point partnership agreement. It provides Chinese researchers with access to the Cook Islands’ 756,000-square-mile exclusive economic zone, which is thought to contain seven billion tons of nodules valued at up to $10 trillion. The handshake was broadcast on Chinese state television. In response, the Cook Islands parliament almost called a vote of no confidence. According to New Zealand, it was completely taken by surprise.
Two months later, President Trump issued an executive order pledging to accumulate metals discovered in nodules, providing seabed mining companies with a buyer—something they had long struggled to secure. The general reasoning is that America cannot rely on Ukraine, cannot dig on its own territory without confronting environmentalists, and is unsure of what to do with Greenland. It thus has a view of the ocean floor below.
Environmental issues are legitimate and should be given careful consideration. Sediment clouds from collector vehicles have long been criticized for potentially suffocating deep-sea ecosystems over thousands of kilometers. Over 95% of the sediment stirred up during test mining resettles within one to two kilometers, according to TMC’s own data collected in collaboration with eighteen marine research institutions. Additionally, after tests revealed that plumes diluted to background levels within days and tens of kilometers, the company decided to return water at 2,000 meters, which is significantly below where tuna and marine mammals normally feed. Whether long-term ecosystem effects will corroborate these preliminary findings is still unknown. Deep-sea research is still in its infancy. The floor is outdated.
The fact that both the scientific discussion and the diplomatic scheming are taking place at the same time and feeding off one another is what makes this moment truly peculiar. Xi Jinping has talked candidly about becoming an expert in “deep-sea access” technologies. The UN-backed organization that oversees international waters, the International Seabed Authority, continues to exercise caution. Trump’s executive order was essentially a purposeful shrug in its direction, and the United States never joined it. “So where do they go?” asked Chris Tang, a professor at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management. The bottom of the Pacific seems to be the solution more and more.
It’s difficult to ignore how much of this is expressed in terms of inevitability. There are nodules. The metals are required. The businesses have funding. The question of whether the geopolitical relationships, environmental science, and regulatory frameworks are prepared is quite different. Additionally, no one appears to be awaiting the response.
