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<\/figure>\nShe immediately dialed David Apatang, the governor of the neighboring Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI). \u201cWe were both very upset that we didn\u2019t get any kind of warning,\u201d she said. Shortly after, she reached out to Bill Hague, an official in the Department of the Interior, the federal agency tasked with managing relations with territorial leaders and tribal nations.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know we are a U.S. territory,\u201d Leon Guerrero recalls telling him. \u201cI know that you as the federal government can just come in and say, \u2018I don\u2019t care about what you guys say. We\u2019re going to do it anyway.\u2019\u201d Even so, she told him, she wanted it on record that she did not support the initiative. According to Leon Guerrero, Hague reassured her that mining would never proceed without the explicit support of the local community.<\/p>\n
Nearly a year later, that is precisely what appears to be happening. <\/p>\n
The Trump administration is advancing aggressive plans to lease vast swaths of the ocean floor to mining operations. The push is part of a broader national strategy to secure critical minerals and counter China, which currently dominates the global supply chain. These materials\u2014including copper, manganese, nickel, and rare earth elements\u2014are considered vital for manufacturing advanced military technologies and high-capacity batteries.<\/p>\n America\u2019s Pacific island territories are at the forefront of this strategy. In July, the Marine Minerals Administration announced it would auction access to 31 million acres of the continental shelf around American Samoa in mid-November. Just a month later, the agency revealed plans for a similar auction in December covering more than 67 million acres on either side of the Marianas archipelago, which includes Guam and the CNMI. Approximately half of those targeted acres border a national marine monument established by President George W. Bush.<\/p>\n Local leaders and environmental groups are fiercely opposing the proposals. Earthjustice, an environmental law nonprofit, recently filed lawsuits against the Trump administration on behalf of conservation groups in both American Samoa and the Mariana Islands. The legal challenges argue that the federal government has failed to determine whether seabed mining will cause irreparable harm to protected species under the Endangered Species Act, such as whales and sea turtles.<\/p>\n The Marine Minerals Administration has declined to comment on the ongoing litigation. Brent Lawrence, a spokesperson for the department, stated that the agency would continue \u201cto closely coordinate with territorial leadership\u201d and community members across American Samoa, Guam, and the Mariana Islands.<\/p>\n Unlike neighboring independent Pacific nations that retain sovereign authority over their waters, Guam, American Samoa, and the CNMI are U.S. territories subject to federal mandates often enacted without their consent. Under international law, Indigenous populations hold the right to free, prior, and informed consent regarding industrial projects affecting their traditional lands and waters. However, the Trump administration maintains that it possesses full legal authority to proceed under U.S. domestic law.<\/p>\n This dynamic reflects a century-old pattern that denies island residents a meaningful voice in federal decisions, according to Adi Mart\u00ednez-Rom\u00e1n, co-director of the advocacy group Right to Democracy. Because territorial residents cannot vote for president, lack voting representation in Congress, and see their rights to self-determination routinely sidelined, their local concerns are easily overlooked.<\/p>\n \u201cThe territories are practically invisible to the general U.S. society and to public officials,\u201d Mart\u00ednez-Rom\u00e1n said. \u201cIt is an insidious result of the colonial framework.\u201d<\/p>\n The tension between federal objectives and local sovereignty was starkly apparent in July during Manu\u2019a Flag Day celebrations in American Samoa. J.V. Langkilde, an attorney with Earthjustice, awoke at 2 a.m. in Manu\u2019a while staying with family. The holiday commemorates the historic signing of a treaty placing the islands under U.S. sovereignty more than a century ago, an agreement intended to respect local property rights.<\/p>\n Instead, Langkilde\u2019s phone lit up with a text alert announcing that the Trump administration was pressing ahead with deep-sea mining leases in Samoan waters. Throughout his visit, family members and community residents repeatedly expressed their disbelief.<\/p>\n \u201cThey think it\u2019s a little bit backwards that some company who has no stake in the community here will have property interest on our ocean floor without a full understanding of impacts,\u201d Langkilde said.<\/p>\n Commercial-scale deep-sea mining remains untested, and comprehensive scientific data regarding its long-term ecological consequences is sparse. Recent studies indicate that mining operations could generate massive sediment plumes capable of choking large marine life, including tuna, which accounts for more than 99 percent of American Samoa\u2019s export economy. While mining corporations dispute these findings, local communities and environmental advocates remain deeply skeptical.<\/p>\n \u201cThe throughline of concern I hear is becoming a test site with no kind of guarantees for money being reserved, not just for revenue share, but even for environmental protection,\u201d Langkilde noted, suggesting that mandatory financial bonds or trust funds should be established to cover potential ecological disasters.<\/p>\n Governor Pula\u2019ali\u2019i Nikolao Pula of American Samoa has voiced identical anxieties. In June 2025, he announced that the territorial government stood united against mining \u201cin line with the express will of the people and the protection of American Samoa\u2019s natural resources.\u201d Despite this united opposition, the Trump administration expanded the prospective mining footprint months later.<\/p>\n Because American Samoa is a U.S. territory, its local ban on seabed mining applies only within three nautical miles of the coastline\u2014a tiny fraction of the 200-mile federal maritime jurisdiction claimed by Washington.<\/p>\n Conversely, the independent nation of Samoa, located just 40 miles to the northwest, exercises complete sovereignty over its waters and has pledged to protect at least 30 percent of them. Samoa has also joined a growing coalition of Pacific island nations calling for an international moratorium on deep-sea mining. As the first of a dozen Pacific nations to achieve modern independence, Samoa exercises the autonomy required to dictate its own environmental management policies.<\/p>\n Other independent nations have taken a different economic path. The Republic of Nauru and the Kingdom of Tonga have actively sponsored deep-sea mining companies, seeking financial benefits in exchange for sponsoring exploration contracts in international waters via the International Seabed Authority. <\/p>\n \u201cFor Nauru, seabed minerals represent more than economic diversification. They are a pathway to resilience and a pathway to contribute to global solutions,\u201d President David Adeang of Nauru stated at the United Nations General Assembly.<\/p>\n Similarly, Tonga\u2019s prime minister signed an agreement with the Trump administration for mining research and exploration, calling it an exciting development. However, the majority of Pacific island nations support an international moratorium, with Palau completely banning the practice in its national waters and countries like Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands raising alarms over fisheries and cultural heritage.<\/p>\n Unlike U.S. territories, independent Pacific states hold votes in international negotiations and can participate directly in the International Seabed Authority\u2019s biannual meetings. More than 45 countries have formally called for an international ban or moratorium on the industry.<\/p>\n While the Trump administration pushes forward by invoking older U.S. laws to process international mining applications outside the established UN framework, territorial residents are left watching from the sidelines. The federal law extending U.S. citizenship to the people of Guam explicitly reserves Congress’s right to overturn any local legislation passed by the island’s lawmakers.<\/p>\n \u201cA decision about our islands is going to be made at a desk,\u201d said Sabrina Suluai-Mahuka, a Right to Democracy fellow from American Samoa. \u201cIt does not make sense that we can\u2019t have any say in how our futures go.\u201d<\/p>\n The disconnect between Washington and the territories was highlighted further when Governor Leon Guerrero traveled to Washington, D.C., to press her case, only to discover days later that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management had doubled the proposed mining zone near Guam without warning. When she confronted federal officials about the lack of communication, she was assured that local leadership would be kept in the loop, yet notifications continued to arrive solely through federal regulatory filings.<\/p>\n Community advocates point out that even when public comment periods are opened, the timeframes granted are severely restrictive. A request by local governors for a 120-day comment extension was trimmed by the Trump administration to just 30 days, leaving residents struggling to respond while dealing with mounting local crises.<\/p>\n In Saipan, former CNMI lawmaker Sheila Babauta spent hours sheltering with her parents and newborn son in a storage room as Typhoon Sinlaku battered the island with 150-mph winds. Dealing with weeks of power outages, property damage, and newborn care, she received text messages about the accelerated seabed mining push while actively cleaning up flood debris.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t have capacity to even think about it,\u201d Babauta said. \u201cAll of the immediate needs definitely took priority over keeping track of what was happening with seabed mining.\u201d<\/p>\n For Babauta and other residents, the threat extends far beyond economics into the realm of cultural survival. Indigenous Chamorro and Carolinian practices are deeply intertwined with the ocean. Traditional seafarers, such as Saipan-based navigator John Castro, rely on stable marine ecosystems and predictable wildlife behavior to practice ancestral navigation using the stars and waves.<\/p>\n \u201cIf deep-sea mining happens, and that thing kind of drives whales in a different course, then we\u2019re going to get lost, too,\u201d Castro said while sitting beneath the thatched roof of a storm-damaged canoe house. <\/p>\n Despite these profound cultural and environmental stakes, territorial leaders continue fighting for a seat at the table and a fair share of potential revenues. U.S. House Delegate Kimberlyn King-Hinds of the CNMI plans to introduce legislation demanding a 50-50 revenue split if the federal government forces the industry upon them. <\/p>\n \u201cIf they\u2019re going to shove this down our throats,\u201d King-Hinds said, \u201cI want to be able to ensure that we have a backup plan, we have insurance and that we actually benefit from the waters that surround us.\u201d<\/p>\n Whether such measures will succeed remains uncertain. With decision-making power centralized in Washington, corporations have heavily lobbied federal officials while local residents, caught between economic vulnerability and the impacts of climate change, continue to voice opposition to an industry that threatens to alter their ancestral waters forever.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" AGANA BAY, Guam \u2014 For Lou Leon Guerrero, the governor of Guam, the news arrived the way it often does for leaders of America\u2019s Pacific territories: as an afterthought delivered by the media. It was November 12, and an advisor had forwarded an article link after a journalist inquired about a federal initiative. Opening the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":1415,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[667,1438,825,1563,1437,1527,2034,660,2035,1725,1439,2033],"class_list":["post-1416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-back","tag-climate-change","tag-conservation","tag-deep","tag-environment","tag-federal","tag-mining","tag-pacific","tag-plans","tag-push","tag-sustainability","tag-territories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tcjsj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tcjsj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tcjsj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tcjsj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tcjsj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tcjsj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1416\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tcjsj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tcjsj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tcjsj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tcjsj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"She](\"https:\/\/grist.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/american-samoa.jpg\")
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