Metals Company ‘applauds’ letter on ratifying UNCLOS treaty

TMC the metals company welcomed a letter from around 350 former U.S. government officials and military officers urging the U.S. Senate to re-evaluate a formal vote on ratifying the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea treaty. The letter, which follows this week’s introduction of the Responsible Use of Seafloor Resources Act in Congress, was signed by around 189 American ambassadors, 73 generals, 50 admirals, four directors of national intelligence and scores of other distinguished supporters. The co-signatories warned how “China and Russia have taken advantage of our absence to work actively to undermine critical United States economic and national security interests,” and that the U.S. had “already lost two of our four ‘USA’ designated deep seabed mine sites, each containing a trillion dollars in value of the strategic minerals of copper, nickel, cobalt, manganese and rare earths” needed for national security and the energy transition. Since the turn of the decade, increasing U.S. investment in and prioritization of offshore mineral exploration has been codified through the formation of various bodies including the National Ocean Mapping, Exploration, and Characterization Council in 2020, the Ocean Policy Committee formed via direction of the National Defense Authorization Act in 2021, and the declaration of outer limits of the U.S. extended continental shelf in 2023 which declared U.S. rights to approximately one million square kilometers of subsea territory in an effort to protect future economic opportunities. Although the U.S. has yet to ratify UNCLOS – a legislative step that would enable it to access the vast, untapped critical minerals found in seafloor nodules in international waters – it can still process and refine critical minerals extracted from polymetallic nodules collected in international waters.