The US has quietly claimed an Arctic seabed territory twice the size of California, now seen as a potential strategic, resource-rich prize for President Donald Trump.
In 2023, the State Department first announced that the US had formally established the outer limits of its Extended Continental Shelf (ECS), claiming approximately 86,000 square miles of seabed beyond the standard 200 nautical miles from the nation’s coastline.
Under international law, the ECS grants coastal states exclusive sovereign rights to explore and exploit seabed resources, including oil, gas and critical minerals.
The US claim is the culmination of decades of scientific work involving icebreaker missions, deep-sea mapping and seismic surveys. International law states that if a nation performs scientific research, it can make a claim to the region studied.
‘We didn’t buy the land,’ Mead Treadwell, former lieutenant governor of Alaska and chair of the US Arctic Research Commission, told the Daily Mail. ‘We paid for research to make what the US felt was a legal, justifiable claim.’
The newly defined territory lies north of Alaska in the High Arctic, extending into parts of the Chukchi Plateau and Canada Basin, areas long considered strategically sensitive due to their proximity to Russian claims in the region and emerging polar shipping corridors.
The effort was accelerated amid concern over Russia’s ongoing Arctic expansion and China’s 2018 declaration that it was a ‘near-Arctic state.’ US officials feared the key territory would otherwise be claimed or controlled by its adversaries.
From a national security standpoint, control of the Arctic seabed does not allow the US to police surface ships or submarines in international waters, but it does allow greater control over undersea infrastructure, including cables, pipelines and seabed installations.
‘There is concern about military expansion in the Arctic Ocean region,’ said Mead Treadwell. ‘We cannot regulate surface ship activities, nor submarines in “innocent passage” coming close to our shores through international straits like the Bering Strait,’ he explained.
Although the ECS research began in 2003 under the George W Bush administration, the claim took on new relevance under President Trump, who has prioritized US energy independence and Arctic dominance as part of his broader economic and security agenda.
The expanded-ECS contains energy deposits and critical minerals considered vital to economic and national security interests.
Scientists with the US Geological Survey (USGS) have identified elevated concentrations of cobalt, manganese and rare earth elements in Arctic seabed formations.
Commercial extraction, however, remains technologically daunting and prohibitively expensive. Harsh ice conditions, extreme depths and volatile energy prices mean that large-scale drilling is unlikely in the near term, according to industry analysts.
For those reasons, no major oil company has publicly committed to exploration in the High Arctic ECS. But still, the Trump administration is inviting private investment.
Last November, the Department of the Interior released a draft of an offshore oil and gas leasing plan that identified new opportunities to lease portions of the High Arctic ECS to private companies, an unprecedented move that would open territory previously considered untouchable for development.
Treadwell also emphasized that oil and gas are not the only potential new prizes.
From a national security standpoint, control of the Arctic seabed does not allow the US to police surface ships or submarines in international waters, but it does provide leverage over undersea infrastructure, including cables, pipelines and seabed installations (stock image)
Trump announced plans to lease the newly acquired seabed to private oil companies (STOCK)
The expanded shelf also gives the US authority, through agencies such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), to manage bottom-dwelling fisheries, including valuable crab populations that migrate along the seafloor.
‘For science, funded by a wide range of public and private sources, this claim may enhance biological, geophysical and geological research opportunities,’ Treadwell added.
The Arctic seabed is also believed to be rich in hydrothermal vents, fissures on the seafloor that release geothermally-heated, mineral-rich water. These vents support organisms known as extremophiles – life forms capable of surviving extreme heat, pressure and chemical environments.
These organisms are already reshaping research into aging, cancer biology and the search for extraterrestrial life, according to marine biologists.
And the entire enterprise is not without controversy, of course.
International law states that if a nation performs scientific research, it can make a claim to the region studied
The legal pathway to claiming an extended continental shelf is rooted in Article 76 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which sets strict scientific criteria for defining continental margins.
Countries that have ratified UNCLOS normally submit their data to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS), whose recommendations make claims final and binding.
Since the US is not an UNCLOS party, it cannot formally submit its ECS claim to the CLCS for international review and recognition – a process followed by all other Arctic nations, including Russia, Denmark and Canada.
This lack of a formal process makes the international community’s response to the US claim unclear.
‘Some argued we sidestepped the UNCLOS process, but we are not a party to that process (and its regulations and international taxes on deep seabed mining) unless and until the US ratifies UNCLOS,’ said Treadwell.
Daily Mail has contacted the White House for comment.
