Donald Trump plans to stockpile deep-sea critical metals to counter China

Donald Trump’s administration is drafting an executive order to enable the stockpiling of metal found on the Pacific Ocean seabed, in an effort to counter China’s dominance of battery minerals and rare earth supply chains, said people familiar with the matter.

The potato-sized nodules that are formed on the sea floor at high pressure over millions of years contain nickel, cobalt, copper and manganese used in batteries, electrical wiring or munitions, as well as traces of rare earth minerals. They could be added to existing federal stockpiles of crude oil and metals.

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The Metals Company, a Vancouver-based frontrunner, said during the talks that its US subsidiary had initiated a process overseen by the US Department of Commerce to apply for permits to explore and mine international waters under a 1980 US law. TMC’s chief executive Gerard Barron told the Financial Times the ISA did not have an “exclusive mandate” to regulate mining in international waters.

https://www.ft.com/content/2205fc9a-67b5-4112-9b7f-cd89d011f5bb