Deep Sea Mining Sparks Global Governance Crisis

The Trump administration in the United States is pushing a deep-sea mining plan that bypasses UN agencies and allows mining companies to extract manganese- and cobalt-rich polymetallic nodules in international waters. The move has been criticized as a “travesty of multilateralism” that could cause irreversible ecological damage: mining would destroy deep-sea habitats, sediment plumes could smother filter-feeding organisms, and noise would interfere with marine mammal navigation.