Image from YouTube (Video uploaded by First Post)
Greenpeace Australia Pacific has slammed Donald Trump’s support of deep sea mining as a ‘gross betrayal of the Pacific’ after the Trump administration signed an executive order advancing U.S. ambitions to launch deep sea mining in U.S. and international waters.
This rogue action is highly politically controversial for appearing to bypass the International Seabed Authority (ISA), the regulatory body set up by the United Nations to protect the deep sea as the common heritage of humankind and decide whether deep sea mining can start in the international seabed.
The Metals Company (TMC) – a deep sea mining company – recently declared its intention to work with the Trump Administration outside of the UN-established regulatory framework, to try to start mining in the Clarion Clipperton Zone (CCZ) in the Pacific – a region that sits outside jurisdiction. The Executive Order instructs the Secretary of Commerce to expedite the process for reviewing and issuing exploration and commercial recovery permits under the Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act (DSHMRA), breaking the longstanding tradition of the US being a good-faith actor on UNCLOS (The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea).
The order outlines that the Trump administration seeks to identify minerals for defence, infrastructure and energy purposes, and makes no mention of addressing the climate crisis.
Shiva Gounden, Head of Pacific at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said: “By authorising deep sea mining outside of international law, the Trump Administration is dressing up a disaster in a suit and tie, signing policies in boardrooms that will drown Pacific nations in financial, economic, cultural and environmental disaster. It’s neocolonialism with a letterhead.
“The Metals Company steam-rolled its way over multilateralism at the ISA and straight through the doors of Donald Trump, without a look back at the Pacific nations it is betraying. Pushing ahead with deep sea mining is a slap in the face to multilateralism, an insult to the UN’s regulatory body, and a gross betrayal of the Pacific.”
If approved, the plans could allow TMC to start mining in the CCZ – a region known for an abundance of polymetallic nodules – and threaten to derail years of negotiations between TMC and its sponsoring states including Nauru, Tonga and Kiribati.
“This move risks leaving Nauru, Kiribati and Tonga high and dry; TMC promised the people of Nauru jobs and prosperity from this agreement, saying that mining their waters would help fix the climate crisis. But it has taken the first chance it got to turn its back on Nauru and it will do the same to any other Pacific country. TMC is a money-hungry machine, using and abusing its Pacific partners without a care for the people, their cultural connection to the ocean, jobs, prosperity or the climate crisis,” Gounden said.
“Deep sea mining is piracy in policy – allowing governments to raid resources and leave wreckage behind. The Trump administration is looking for minerals to build weapons for America – not help the Pacific. This should be a warning to all Pacific leaders: the deep sea mining industry is not our friend, it is an industry of lies and betrayal. Pacific leaders must now unite to protect our Pacific Ocean and call for a moratorium on deep sea mining.”
According to The Metals Company, it will apply for permits “in the second quarter of 2025”, with reports stating intent to commence mining operations as soon as 2027. Gerard Barron, the Australian CEO of The Metals Company, has gone on the record with his company’s willingness and desire to bypass internationally agreed regulations, stating in reference to the ongoing negotiations at the ISA “by all means, go ahead and sign your treaty…we’ll be out there.”
Currently, 32 countries have backed a moratorium or precautionary pause on deep sea mining, including Tuvalu, Palau, Solomon Islands, Marshall Islands, Fiji, the Federated States of Micronesia, Vanuatu and Samoa. Australia has not.
Independent sites such as The AIMN provide a platform for public interest journalists. From its humble beginning in January 2013, The AIMN has grown into one of the most trusted and popular independent media organisations.
One of the reasons we have succeeded has been due to the support we receive from our readers through their financial contributions.
With increasing costs to maintain The AIMN, we need this continued support.
Your donation – large or small – to help with the running costs of this site will be greatly appreciated.
You can donate through PayPal or credit card via the button below, or donate via bank transfer: BSB: 062500; A/c no: 10495969
I'm thinking that the nuclear lobby loves the ALP even more than it loves the…
From The Australian’s newsletter: Breaking News Border Force collects illegal arrivals landed on remote northern…
By Denis Hay Description Teal Independents are restoring democracy and integrity in Australia. Learn how…
By Walt Zlotow Some dare not call it genocide Folks following the ongoing Israeli genocide…
Don't Nuke the Climate Media Release On 26 April 1986, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant…
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton: "Sir Humphrey, please, take a seat. We must engage in a…
View Comments
Certainly since the departure of Josef and Adolf, we now have an international oafish leader of filthy drives, yet to be explained lack of sanity and decency, and, absolutely no restaints in morals, ethics, decencies. Donald Dogshit is a human manifestation of an extrusion of a skunk's orifice, totally untrustworthy, evil, egofixated and SICK. We must all resist and oppose by any means.
It's no surprise that the United States supports deep-sea mining. The U.S. increasingly acts as a rogue state, using its economic and military power to bully any nation that stands in the way of corporate or military interests, even so-called "allies" like Australia. Our supposed "friendship" with the U.S. often feels more like obedience, as Australian governments repeatedly place American interests ahead of our environment, sovereignty, and people.
We urgently need an independent foreign policy, prioritising protecting our planet and standing up to destructive corporate greed.
Why are Australians surprised that Trumpery is a loud mouthed bully willing and intent upon promoting American working class memories of the time back in the 50s when all US manufacturing occurred within the 48 mainland states.
Then the international corporations discovered that air-conditioning units liberated management in tropical nations having few, if any, worker regulation, low wages and malleable government officials. So off went the corporate executives pursuing THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR with little care or understanding that the world and their markets were finite resources in a zero sum game. So, off-shore went the jobs with the corporate cost of labour in foreign countries making little/no contribution to the wealth and life style of those same American workers.
Now about 30 years later as workers wonder why there is maldistributed benefits of the American Dream, the billionaires continue to rort the taxation system because they own the politicians allegedly representing the voluntary voters.
THAT ALONE should be sufficient reason for Australian voters to kiss the ballot boxes at the pre-poll and polling booths when they cast their mandatory vote. This appears to be the only impediment protecting our Australian lifestyle from the rapturous greed displayed by the pre-selected COALition politicians funded by ''political donors'' because of their moral''flexibility'' and gross incompetence.
The underlying problem is how American political foundations have funded often outrageous political campaigns usually to prevent some social benefit for the workers that would likely reduce the profits for the overpaid under-skilled managers and shareholders.
Now from the safety of several thousand kilometres distance we can watch the USA (United States of Apartheid) self destruct socially and economically ..... morally it disintegrated decades ago with the multiple military expeditions into other countries to sweep up financial control for the US banking system.
It is time for Australia to abandon the Scummo USUKA sub debacle that is unlikely to provide Australia only with financial vasal status and too many US troops defending US military installations within our sovereign national boundaries.
Well, we've just about destroyed the surface land of the planet so why the hell not, let's go and destroy the sea and ocean bottoms. There's only fish and other critters that live there and they aren't likley to mine it now are they?
Deep-sea mining, if it comes to pass, will just add to the already insufferable burden imposed on the planet's oceans by the nearly 5 million fishing vessels, ~107,000 merchant ships, ~100,000 naval vessels, ~500 submarines, ~300 cruise ships; as if that amount of stuff floating aboat isn't bad enough, then there's the warming and acidification caused by global warming. The scientific community have long registered their concern on the impact of this industrial intrusion on the cetaceans - noise, discarded nets, plastics, chemical pollution - all negatively impacting these magnificent species, but it doesn't end there.
Overfishing risks loss of species, global warming threatens reef ecosystems as well as intensifying the thawing of polar ice bodies and ultimately the perturbation of oceanic currents that serve to carry nutrients and are major sources of climate and ecosystem integrity.
Humanity's stewardship of the oceans and freshwater resources are a case study in mismanagement; polar cap ice melts, glacial ice loss everywhere, rivers & lakes drying up, rising ocean water levels everywhere... all with consequent impacts on human and other species' communities.
As for Denis Hay's final sentence (above), good luck with that. Corporate greed is somewhat akin to the Caterpillar D9s that the IDF use to flatten Gazan & West Bank properties; enormous, powerful, indiscriminately destructive, unstoppable. Think about it... we've sacrificed orangutans for palm oil, amazonian rainforests for McDonald's beef patties, the mid-western American plains for corn, soybean and wheat, the complexity of south coast Tasmanian waters for toxic salmon farms, our addiction to fossil fuels may well bring extinction to the iconic polar bears along with a host of other species from minor to major - insect populations have already crashed, globally, and many larger species are similarly threatened... the full disaster... shielded from people's consciousness by virtue of the incessant flooding of distracting material; movies and streaming television & sports and the rest of the plethora of trivial distractions.
[And speaking of corporate greed and lack of conscience, the American company Caterpillar Inc., the world's largest manufacturer of construction equipment, has long been the preferred supplier of these bulldozers to the Israeli armed forces who have used them as a primary tool to wreak death & destruction against their foes, including, notoriously, crushing peaceful protestors beneath these behemoth machines, one an American woman. Do the execs of Caterpillar Inc. sleep well at night? You betcha, kaching, as their stock prices & profits rise.]
Whatever the eventual, inevitable & ultimate outcomes, we can't say we weren't warned.