Energy

America Looks Beneath The Waves As Critical Mineral Race Heads Offshore

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Miles under the ocean, a trove of critical minerals could offer the U.S. a new front in its race for resources.

The Trump administration is moving toward a potential critical mineral lease sale in federal waters near American Samoa, part of a broader effort to tap mineral deposits sitting thousands of feet beneath the Pacific. Federal surveys have already recovered nodules, balls of mineral-laden earth from the seafloor, while the administration has directed agencies to accelerate domestic exploration, collection and processing of seabed minerals.

“America has spent decades worrying about China’s grip on critical minerals while standing on the shoreline of an extraordinary strategic resource,” Scott Segal, Scott Segal, a partner at energy-focused law firm Bracewell, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Responsible seabed mineral development can diversify supply, strengthen U.S. industrial resilience, and provide nickel, cobalt, copper and manganese without simply trading dependence on China for dependence on somebody else.”

Washington is racing to secure critical mineral supplies that underpin advanced technologies and national security, with the Uncle Sam competing against China for dominance in artificial intelligence, semiconductors, defense systems and other strategic industries.

The deposits could provide multiple critical minerals in a single mining operation without declining ore grades, though critics warn deep-sea mining could cause lasting damage to poorly understood marine ecosystems.

‘The Need Has Gone Up’

The Marine Minerals Administration (MMA) announced a proposed leasing notice in July for an American Samoa Outer Continental Shelf mineral lease sale, advancing a process that the Department of the Interior first launched in 2025. The minerals could strengthen U.S. supply chains and support the country’s energy, defense and manufacturing sectors, according to The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

The Trump administration is pouring billions of dollars into efforts to rebuild domestic critical mineral supply chains. President Donald Trump announced $3 billion in critical mineral and battery projects in August, arguing that the U.S. needs to reduce its reliance on foreign supply chains and reclaim its position as a global mineral power.

“Just as shale oil, the finding and the development of shale oil and gas in the United States, changed the energy security dynamic, so will undersea minerals change the mineral security dynamic for us and our allies because you’re now talking about the largest resource that is relatively less expensive to get than terrestrial mines that’s not priced on the current market,” Diamond told the DCNF.

Glomar Minerals holds two exploration contracts for mineral-rich rocks scattered across the Pacific seafloor through its wholly owned subsidiary UK Seabed Resources.

A similar technological breakthrough transformed the U.S. energy industry during the shale boom. Advances in hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling unlocked oil and natural gas deposits that had previously been difficult to produce economically, reversing a decades-long decline in American crude production and eventually helping make the U.S. the world’s largest oil producer.

“We’re at this moment, similar to what happened with shale, where technology costs have come down and the need has gone up,” Diamond said.

That need has become increasingly important to unwind China’s dominance over critical mineral supply chains.

China dominates the processing of rare earths after they are mined. The country controls roughly 88% of light rare earth processing and 93% of metal production, according to a 2026 International Monetary Fund analysis. For heavy rare earths, China controls about 97% of processing, 95% of metal production and 90% of permanent magnet production.

Simply finding more minerals, whether beneath American soil or the Pacific Ocean, will not by itself eliminate the Uncle Sam’s reliance on China, Anupam Ghildyal, Chief Operating Officer of REalloys, told the DCNF.

The U.S. government is considering roughly 33 million acres of federal waters, including the original area northeast of the Manu’a Islands and Rose Atoll and additional waters extending southwest associated with nodules that contain cobalt, nickel, copper, manganese, zinc and rare earth elements.

“The administration’s actions are strategically significant because they demonstrate that the United States is treating critical-mineral security as a long-term national-security and industrial-policy priority,” Ghildyal told the DCNF.

The resources will not become commercially available overnight. Offshore deposits must be characterized and developed, while companies will need a regulatory pathway for moving from exploration to eventual extraction. That means navigating a web of red tape.

A massive tungsten discovery in Nevada illustrates the problem: 3 Proton Lithium estimates the deposit contains 1.78 million metric tons of tungsten, but federal land restrictions, permitting requirements and a NASA satellite-calibration site stand between portions of the resource and development. The project has received a federal fast-track designation, but mining industry officials say bringing a new U.S. mine from discovery to production can take decades.

The same challenge hangs over another potentially enormous domestic resource. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates the Appalachian region contains about 2.3 million metric tons of recoverable lithium, enough to replace more than three centuries of U.S. imports at current levels. But permitting hurdles and a lack of infrastructure could keep much of that lithium in the ground for decades. 

“The obstacle is familiar: turning geological potential into actual production requires regulatory certainty, serious science and timely permitting,” Segal, a partner at Bracewell, told the DCNF. “We are clearly on that track now. But minerals sitting on the seabed do nothing for national security until there is a responsible path to recover them.”

“The opportunity presented by seabed resources and their processing in U.S. is to build a new American critical-minerals industry almost from scratch, with American environmental standards, technology and strategic priorities,” Segal said.

The administration is already expanding the strategy beyond American Samoa. Interior proposed another deep-sea mineral lease sale in August in federal waters off the Northern Mariana Islands, another step in Trump’s push to increase domestic critical mineral supplies.

The administration’s push has also encountered opposition from environmental organizations, government officials and church officials in American Samoa who have raised concerns about the environmental risks and scientific uncertainties surrounding deep-sea mining.

Environmental groups filed a lawsuit in August challenging the American Samoa leasing process, alleging the federal government failed to adequately evaluate potential impacts on protected marine species. American Samoa’s government has also opposed the proposed leasing, citing concerns about protecting the territory’s natural resources, while the territory’s congressional delegate has called for an environmental impact study examining how commercial-scale mining could affect the surrounding ocean ecosystem.

Underwater mining is relatively safe mining is since it happens at depths where only one-celled organisms live, Diamond told the DCNF.

For Diamond, the potential prize is an entirely new source of minerals capable of reshaping a market in which the United States has spent years trying to break Chinese leverage.

“The minute the first ship hits our harbor, the world will change because reality will change,” Diamond said.