James Comer asks Pentagon for intel on China’s deep-sea mining ops

A House committee asked the Department of Defense (DOD) Tuesday for a briefing on its efforts to counter China’s deep-sea mining activities, according to a letter exclusively obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The House Committee On Oversight And Government Reform letter to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth requests a staff-level briefing from the Pentagon “as soon as possible, but no later than July 22, 2025” to discuss how DOD is complying with President Donald Trump’s April 2025 executive order concerning “offshore critical minerals and resources.” Trump’s executive order directed DOD to identify critical minerals available through deep-sea mining used in defense applications as part of a government-wide push to counter China’s growing control over ocean floor resources.

“Deep-sea mining (DSM) has the potential to provide an abundance of critical and rare earth minerals that are vital to everyday life for Americans and America’s national security,” reads the letter, which was signed by the committee’s chairman, Kentucky Republican Rep. James Comer. “The [Chinese Communist Party] has designs to extract and commercialize these resources — and otherwise box-out the U.S. and its allies from direct access.”

Rare earths are a group of 17 elements with unique properties, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, and are critical for the production of advanced military, telecommunications, medical and energy technologies.

Tomahawk missiles, radar systems, Predator unmanned aerial vehicles and smart bombs all require rare earth magnets, according to DOD. The F-35 Lightning II fighter jet requires more than 900 pounds of rare earth elements and Virginia-class submarines need 9,200 pounds.

Yet, China accounted for 78% of U.S. rare earth element imports in 2019, according to the U.S. International Trade Commission.

China’s dominance of deep-sea mining also poses other, less obvious, dangers to U.S. national security, according to the committee’s letter.

“Technologies developed for deep-sea exploration and mining will greatly impact advancement in both the maritime and defense sectors, making the dual-use nature of these technologies important for both commercial use and U.S. national security,” the committee’s letter states. “As DSM is largely unregulated, Chinese companies and the CCP are actively pursuing the extraction and commercialization of deep-sea minerals through DSM, while simultaneously developing and testing new maritime and military capabilities.”

China’s aggressive deep-sea mining efforts underscore the CCP’s overarching objective to control manufacturing and expand its military, Steve Yates, senior research fellow for China and national security policy at the Heritage Foundation, told the DCNF.

“This includes ice-breaking in the Arctic, mining beneath the ocean, and eventually exploitation of the moon,” Yates said. “All with the same characteristic disregard for transparency, accountability, and sustainability as demonstrated by its disregard for China’s own air, water, and arable land.”

“Knowing the relative scarcity of supplies and processing facilities for rare earths, deep-sea mining is another way to exploit U.S. and allied defense tech supply chain vulnerabilities and thereby degrade deterrence against China’s aggression and expansionism,” Yates added.

In its global pursuit of critical minerals, China is also establishing memorandums of understanding (MOU) with small island nations to gain access to deposits located within their territorial waters, the committee’s letter warns.

“The CCP is emboldened to encroach upon the sovereign waters of less powerful countries in the Pacific who may not want to partner with the CCP, but do not have the power to protect their waters against China’s military and commercial reach,” the committee’s letter states.

China signed an MOU in February 2025 with the Cook Islands outlining the nations’ intent to cooperate on matters such as the “exploration and development of deep-sea mineral resources.” The month prior, China and Kiribati had discussed “potential collaboration for the sustainable exploration of the deep ocean resources in Kiribati.”

“The long-term repercussions could impact the freedom of navigable waters, commercial enterprise of DSM, and the sovereignty of smaller, less powerful Pacific Island nations,” the committee’s letter states.

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