Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — A July 15, letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth from Rep. James Comer, chairman of the House Committee on Oversite and Government Reform has requested a staff- level briefing as soon as possible but no later than July 22, 2025, to discuss how Dept. of Defense (DOD) is complying with President Trump’s executive order protecting American interests and national security in the deep- sea mining sector.

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.'

In April 2025, President Donald Trump issued an executive order demanding that agencies unleash American offshore initiatives to maintain "leadership in deep sea science and technology and seabed mineral resources."

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has designs to extract and commercialize these resources — and otherwise box-out the U.S. and its allies from direct access.

The Committee seeks a staff-level briefing to understand how DOD is complying with President Trump's executive order.

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.

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."

Furthermore, China is establishing Memorandums of Understanding (MOU) with small island nations around the globe, particularly in areas with high concentrations of critical minerals. 

This allows China to form strategic partnerships and access to waters rich in underwater critical minerals. The CCP is emboldened to encroach upon the sovereign waters of less powerful countries in the Pacific who may want to partner with the CCP, but do not have the power to protect their waters against China’s military and commercial reach. The long- term repercussions could impact the freedom of navigable water, commercial enterprise of DSM, and the sovereignty of smaller, less powerful Pacific Island nations.

The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is the principal oversight committee of the U.S. House of Representatives and has broad authority to investigate “any matter” at “any time” under House Rule X.