Trump is steamrolling global calls for a moratorium on deep-sea mining

A sample of a polymetallic nodule at the Viridian Biometals lab in Pasadena, California. | Photo: Getty Images

The Trump administration took the next step toward unilaterally jumpstarting deep-sea mining this week, announcing a "consolidated" permitting process for both searching for and commercially extracting minerals that have so far remained relatively untouched.

These minerals are found so deep in the sea that they're beyond any single nation's national jurisdiction - which is why...