The Trump administration moved this week to formally consider The Metals Company’s application to mine the Pacific seabed, launching a regulatory process that will culminate in public hearings late next month and could clear the way for the world’s first large-scale deep-ocean extraction of battery metals as early as 2027. The decision, announced by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Washington, D.C., answers President Donald Trump’s directive to accelerate access to critical minerals in 2025 and positions a Canadian firm to test a largely unregulated frontier thousands of miles from the U.S. coastline.
The rapid advance of the permit marks a pivotal moment for a nascent industry that has leapt forward on the strength of White House policy. In April, the president issued an executive order instructing agencies to remove “unnecessary barriers” to seabed mining, part of what analysts describe as an unusual drive to secure supply chains vital to electric-vehicle batteries and other clean-energy technologies. That order was one of several unusual steps Trump took in 2025 to tighten U.S. control over critical-mineral sources, according to Canary Media.
Less than a week after the executive directive, Vancouver-based The Metals Company submitted parallel permit requests to U.S. regulators and to the United Nations–chartered International Seabed Authority (ISA). NOAA has now posted the U.S. application for public review and set hearings for late January—a timeline observers call “light-speed” compared with previous mineral-extraction reviews. The Logic reports that the firm “faces key U.S. hearings next month on seabed mining,” underscoring the accelerated schedule and high stakes involved.
The Resource and the Timeline
Three million square miles of ocean floor between Hawaii and Mexico, known as the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, hold trillions of potato-shaped nodules packed with nickel, cobalt, manganese, and copper. These metals form the backbone of most lithium-ion batteries. The Metals Company, which conducted a trial harvest in the zone in 2022, says it can begin commercial recovery in 2027 if regulators grant production approvals this year.
Overlapping Jurisdictions and Legal Uncertainty
By opening the first U.S. permitting track, Trump’s team has thrust Washington into a complex clash of jurisdictions. The United States never ratified the 1994 Law of the Sea treaty that created the ISA, leaving federal agencies free to craft separate rules for activities in areas beyond national waters. Company filings reveal that its proposed U.S. lease areas overlap significantly with exploration blocks already sponsored by the Pacific island nation of Nauru under the ISA regime. The firm amended its sponsorship deal in June to avoid conflicting claims, but ocean-law specialists warn that a U.S. green light would set up an unprecedented dual-authority system with potential for litigation on multiple fronts.
Environmental Research and Opposition
NOAA officials say they intend to “keep the process moving” while still requiring the environmental impact studies mandated under the National Environmental Policy Act. The Metals Company has compiled more than a decade of biodiversity and sediment research—some of it published in peer-reviewed journals—yet 130 independent scientists signed a joint letter in August urging a global moratorium until far more data are collected. At least 40 countries, including Germany, France, and New Zealand, have endorsed either a pause or an outright ban on deep-sea mining. American Samoa maintains its own moratorium despite U.S. pressure to open nearby waters.
The environmental stakes are high because the deep sea is one of Earth’s least-understood ecosystems. A single mining machine the size of a combine harvester can disturb sediment plumes over dozens of square kilometers, potentially smothering coral-like sponges and disrupting carbon-sequestering processes that operate on geological timescales. The company argues that polymetallic nodules sit loosely on the seabed, allowing for collection with minimal drilling, but critics counter that each nodule itself functions as habitat for microbial communities that underpin the food web.
Geopolitical Strategy and Investment Surge
Trump’s embrace of seabed mining dovetails with a broader 2025 strategy to “on-shore or friend-shore” the supply chains that feed U.S. energy manufacturing. That program spans tax incentives, loan guarantees, and a push to reopen dormant nickel and cobalt refineries. Its effect has been dramatic: investment flows into deep-sea-mineral startups surged in 2025, “catapulting” an otherwise unprofitable sector onto the front pages of venture-capital briefs, according to Grist.
Economic Viability in Question
Serious economic questions loom. Independent analysts note that EV-battery chemistries are shifting away from nickel and cobalt toward cheaper iron-phosphate alternatives. China, the world’s largest battery producer, has already reduced its nickel and cobalt content, undercutting price projections that once made nodules look essential. Meanwhile, the Democratic Republic of Congo—source of roughly 70 percent of global cobalt—has throttled exports to prop up sagging prices, signaling that terrestrial supplies remain more than adequate in the near term.
Technological hurdles also remain steep. Lifting millions of tons of wet nodules from depths of 4,000 meters will require billion-dollar ships, miles-long riser pipes, and rugged undersea robots, all untested at commercial scale. The Metals Company told investors it can break even at $100 per ton of ore, yet research firm Wood Mackenzie estimates costs will be at least double that figure once full environmental mitigation is factored in.
The Regulatory Path Forward
Despite the uncertainties, the U.S. government has staked its position: speed now, debate later. NOAA will take written comments for 45 days and convene two public hearings—one in Honolulu and one online—before drafting an environmental impact statement. A final decision could arrive before the end of the year, well ahead of the ISA, which has struggled for two decades to finalize its own mining code.
If NOAA does grant the permit, the ruling will likely trigger diplomatic protests from ISA member states that view the agency’s move as an end-run around multilateral governance. It could also invite lawsuits from environmental groups alleging that the United States is effectively ignoring treaty obligations it declined to sign but has traditionally respected in practice.
What’s at Stake
The convergence of geopolitical urgency and novel resource extraction explains why seabed mining has raced from distant concept to regulatory reality in less than 12 months. Supporters see a chance to diversify away from Chinese-dominated supply chains and to feed the battery factories springing up in the American heartland. Opponents argue that technological innovation on land and in laboratories can deliver the same minerals with far fewer ecological unknowns.
Legal scholars caution that Washington’s path may reshape global maritime law. By carving out a unilateral permitting lane, the United States is effectively testing whether great powers can short-circuit treaty bodies when strategic commodities are at stake. Should the experiment succeed economically, other nations—most notably China and Russia—could follow suit, fracturing the ISA’s authority and ushering in a resource rush on the ocean floor.
For now, all eyes turn to next month’s hearings and to NOAA’s environmental review. The outcome will not only determine whether The Metals Company’s dredges set sail in 2027, but also whether 2025 becomes the year the deep sea transformed from scientific frontier into industrial worksite.
Sources
- https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/clean-energy-supply-chain/us-critical-minerals-2025-trump
- https://thelogic.co/briefing/the-metals-company-faces-key-u-s-hearings-next-month-on-seabed-mining/
- https://grist.org/global-indigenous-affairs-desk/what-changed-for-deep-sea-mining-in-2025-everything/
