The United States built the internet, went to the moon, and sent robots to Mars. But at some point, it never got around to writing a clear plan for the deep ocean floor, which is one of the most resource-rich and strategically important places on Earth. It’s easy to miss that gap in Washington’s busy policy agenda, but it’s quietly becoming one of the biggest mistakes of this decade.
The United States made deep seabed mining a national priority in April 2025. China’s stricter rules on exporting critical minerals, which are used in defense systems, advanced chips, and AI hardware, set off the crisis. All of a sudden, a weakness in the supply chain that experts had been warning about for years looked like a real emergency. After that came executive orders. The process of getting permits moved faster. Project Vault, a $12 billion strategic mineral reserve, began in February 2026. Things started to move quickly.
Speed and plan are not the same, though. Washington’s work was more of a response than a plan. Each response to the policy made sense on its own. They look like a construction crew putting down bricks without an architect’s plan: sure of themselves, busy, and going in an unknown direction.
The main conflict is both legal and strategic. The United States has chosen to look for minerals on the ocean floor without following the rules set by the International Seabed Authority, a UN body that oversees who can mine where on the ocean floor. The United States never signed the treaty in question. That has been true for a long time. But the decision to use a law from 1980 that hasn’t been used in a long time to get out of existing ISA contracts, even ones held by Pacific Island countries like Tonga and Nauru, is more than just a legal matter. It shows that Washington is ready to play by its own rules, no matter what the international rules say. The head of the ISA agreed with the statement that the action was “surprising” and warned that it could “destabilize the entire system of global ocean governance.” Institutions don’t use that kind of language all the time.
Take some time to think about this irony. At the moment, the ISA framework is the main structure that also limits China. Beijing has more ISA exploration contracts than any other country. For almost twenty years, it has been building mineral partnerships all over the Pacific. Since 2009, China has been doing deep-sea surveys in the South Pacific. In February 2025, the Cook Islands and China went ahead with a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. Kiribati’s exclusive economic zone includes about 3.5 million square kilometers of some of the most strategically important waters in the central Pacific. By March 2025, Chinese officials were in talks with Kiribati’s officials about working together on deep-sea minerals. This was just a few months after Kiribati’s ISA contract with a Western company quietly fell through. It seems like every spot left open by a Western partner is quickly filled.
The Pacific Island countries that are in the middle are not just standing there doing nothing. They have to make decisions quickly, with little information, and often without long-term partnership offers that would make siding with Washington seem like it’s worth the risk. The difference is clear: according to a separate study, Pacific Island nations could get an average of $382,000 a year for 28 years under the current ISA revenue-sharing plans, while mining companies would keep about 98 percent of the money made. Leaders in the Pacific who have seen fishing fleets from far away take huge profits from their waters for decades know right away what that structure means.
The tuna fishery in the Pacific is a more positive example. Eight Pacific Island countries got together through the Parties to the Nauru Agreement and controlled about half of the world’s skipjack tuna supply. They then used their combined power to make about $500 million a year. They gave up negotiating on their own. The lesson that bargaining as a group against bigger powers leads to better results than making separate deals applies directly to minerals found on the seabed, even though the resources are limited and can’t be used over and over again.
What the US hasn’t done is set up the kind of regional governance that would make a long-term American partnership really appealing. Even though bilateral agreements with individual islands may seem like a good idea, they actually make things worse for smaller countries. For Pacific Island countries to choose Washington’s partnership, they would need a regional framework with shared environmental standards, real revenue sharing, and real technology transfer. This is not because they feel strongly about Washington’s partnership, but because it is in their best interest.
The minerals are important. But the relationships change too. It is only a short-term trade to protect cobalt and manganese while weakening the partnerships that make the Pacific navigable. It’s still not clear if Washington fully understands the difference. The deep ocean doesn’t wait for things to be clear.
