US territories hit out at Trump plan to explore deep sea mining in the Pacific

The Marine Mineral Administration, an agency within the U.S. Department of the Interior, has proposed auctioning deep sea mining leases for twenty-eight million hectares of seafloor. As The Guardian reports, the plan targets areas off the coast of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands near the Mariana Trench. The proposal has faced opposition from U.S. territories in the Pacific, coming as the Trump administration competes with China for control of critical ocean minerals.

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