President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at boosting the deep-sea mining industry, marking his latest attempt to boost U.S. access to nickel, copper and other critical minerals used widely across
President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at boosting the deep-sea mining industry, marking his latest attempt to boost U.S. access to nickel, copper and other critical minerals used widely across the economy.
The order, which Trump signed in private, seeks to jumpstart the mining of both U.S. and international waters as part of a push to offset China's sweeping control of the critical minerals industry.
Parts of the Pacific Ocean and elsewhere are estimated to contain large amounts of potato-shaped rocks known as polymetallic nodules filled with the building blocks for electric vehicles and electronics.
More than 1 billion metric tons of those nodules are estimated to be in U.S. waters and filled with manganese, nickel, copper and other critical minerals, according to an administration official.
Extracting them could boost U.S. GDP by $300 billion over 10 years and create 100,000 jobs, the official added.
"The United States has a core national security and economic interest in maintaining leadership in deep-sea science and technology and seabed mineral resources," Trump said in the order.
The order directs the administration to expedite mining permits under the Deep Seabed Hard Minerals Resource Act of 1980 and to establish a process for
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