The Executive Order is intended to aid in establishing the U.S. as a global leader in seabed mineral exploration and extraction of seabed polymetallic nodules and other strategic materials, with clear geopolitical implications.
The Executive Order
On April 24, 2025, President Trump issued an Executive Order entitled “Unleashing America’s Offshore Critical Minerals and Resources”, intended to broaden and support seabed mineral development by encouraging investment and research in deep sea science, mapping, and technology. The latest in a series of Executive Orders targeting critical minerals (each the subject of previous W&C alerts here and here), this Executive Order mandates multiple governmental agencies (including the Department of Commerce, Defense, Energy, the Interior, and State) to support current deep sea mining capabilities by expediting current policies and procedures, generating reports on American commercial capacity for such ventures, and cooperating with intergovernmental and nongovernmental entities to assist in achieving the objectives of the Executive Order.
Commercial Objectives
The Executive Order tasks various federal agencies with specific actions on a sixty-day deadline (June 23, 2025) to aid deep sea mining and research as follows:
- The Secretaries of Commerce, Energy, and the Interior, along with heads of relevant agencies, must provide a report outlining private sector opportunities in mineral resource exploration, mining, and environmental monitoring, particularly in the United Stated Outer Continental Shelf, as well as commercial seabed mineral resource processing capacity in the U.S. or on U.S. flagged vessels.
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The report is required to not only focus on areas within the United States’ Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) but must also cover areas outside of any country’s jurisdiction, as well as areas in the jurisdiction of countries that have expressed interest in partnering with the U.S. on seabed mineral development.
Notably, the U.S. is not a member state of the International Seabed Authority, an intergovernmental body with 167 member states, created in 1994 by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. While the International Seabed Authority has been debating international standards on deep-sea mining for years, it has never formalized comprehensive rules.
- The Secretary of Commerce, acting through the Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (“NOAA”) and in consultation with the Secretary of State and Director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, must expedite the process for reviewing and issuing seabed mineral exploration licenses and commercial recovery permits. Certain deep-sea mining companies have already begun the permitting process with NOAA.
- The Secretary of the Interior must update and expedite the established review and permit approval process for prospecting and granting leases for exploration, development, and production of seabed mineral resources within the United States Outer Continental Shelf to promote “efficiency, predictability and competitiveness” for American companies.
Exploratory and Strategic Objectives
On the same sixty-day timeline, the Executive Order also requires various federal agencies to enact programs with clear geostrategic objectives, as follows:
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The Secretaries of Commerce, the Interior, and State, along with heads of relevant agencies, must:
- cooperate with commercial and non-governmental organizations, to develop a detailed plan mapping priority areas of the seabed for accelerated data collection, with priority given to areas within the United States Outer Continental Shelf; and
- actively seek opportunities to offer support to allies for seabed mineral resource exploration, extraction, processing, and environmental monitoring in areas within their national jurisdictions and provide a report on the feasibility of an international benefit-sharing mechanism for seabed mineral resource extraction and development that occurs in areas beyond the national jurisdiction of any country.
With these actions, the United States may be positioning itself as a leader for international seabed development and extraction, as an alternative to the International Seabed Authority.
- The Secretary of the Interior must also identify which critical minerals may be derived from seabed resources, and coordinate with the Secretary of Defense and Secretary of Energy to indicate which of these seabed critical minerals are “essential” for defense infrastructure, energy or manufacturing applications.
- The Secretaries of Defense and Energy must also provide a report that addresses the feasibility, benefits and drawbacks of using the National Defense Stockpile for physical or virtual storage of materials derived from seabed polymetallic nodules and of entering offtake agreements for these materials.
- The Secretaries of Commerce, Defense, and Energy must review and revise existing regulations to support domestic processing capabilities for seabed mineral resources, explore the use of grant and loan authorities including the Defense Production Act (“DPA”) for this purpose, and ensure the Strategic and Critical Materials Board of Directors considers seabed mineral resource developments when recommending a strategy for ensuring a secure supply of materials critical to national security under the Strategic and Critical Materials Stock Piling Act (50 U.S.C. 98 et seq.). Notably, DPA authority has been previously invoked to provide grant and loan authority to the United States International Development Finance Corporation (“DFC”) to support domestic critical minerals development, and its inclusion here would further broaden the scope of projects that the DFC may consider for investment.
Finally, the Executive Order also requires the DFC, the Export-Import Bank of the United States, the Trade and Development Agency, and other unspecified relevant agencies to deliver a joint report to the National Energy Dominance Council and the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy, identifying tools to support domestic and international seabed mineral resource exploration, extraction, processing, and environmental monitoring. This broad mandate is likely geared towards knowledge-gathering and identifying potential areas in which the Trump Administration can have direct influence to achieve the stated goals of the Executive Order.
Staking a Claim
Over the past years, while the technology for retrieval of polymetallic nodules and other deep-sea minerals has advanced, international law has remained stalled and environmental impacts remain unclear. Other international actors (e.g. China, the United Kingdom and the European Union) have held back on issuing development permits until a comprehensive framework for regulating and allocating access could be put in place. With this Executive Order, the Trump Administration is signaling that the United States is eager to be a first mover in the space and is actively seeking collaborators.
