U.S. non-participation in UNCLOS and ceding of seabed to foreign parties could become greatest foreign policy failure
MOORE: The third question is, well, why do we really need to have adhered to the convention? I hope I have answered that in giving you some of the issues already. Let me just say, if you really believe that you prefer the United States not to be THE oceans leader in the world but simply to be an observer while the rest of the world changes the law and things, then you should be for this opposition. Because that's exactly what is happening.
We are being harmed and being harmed in very serious ways. And one of those that I've been particularly paying attention to economically that has not gotten much attention is literally we have remaining three huge mine sites in the deep ocean floor. A mine site is approximately the size of the state of Rhode Island, each one somewhere around $1 trillion in aggregate value of hard minerals for the United States. We've lost one out of the four of those already because of the delay. The companies just got tired of this and basically sold it for nothing. And if the United States doesn't adhere in a reasonable period of time, what's going to happen is those sites will be turned over to the Chinese and the Russians and the others. And this will be one of the greatest travesties, I think, in the history of U.S. foreign policy.
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U.S. failure to ratify UNCLOS has damaged U.S. national security and economic growth by forclosing valuable opportunities, increasing the costs for military operations, and crippling U.S. maritime leadership as our adversaries become more aggressive.
Related Quotes:- U.S. non-participation in UNCLOS has tangible costs to our national security
- Both US and world losing out by US non-participation in UNCLOS
- As most prominent advocate of UNCLOS during negotiations, US has lost significant political capital by remaining outside the treaty
- It is not too late for the U.S. to join UNCLOS but there are and will continue to be real costs for delaying accession
- Serious consequences for U.S. by remaining outside the treaty
- U.S. critical security interests are continually harmed by its non party status to UNCLOS
- U.S. non-participation in UNCLOS and ceding of seabed to foreign parties could become greatest foreign policy failure
Supporting Arguments:- U.S. is losing emerging Arctic race by not being party to UNCLOS
- Adversaries using U.S. absence from UNCLOS to modify martime law in ways adverse to U.S. interests
- U.S. position as a leader has been damaged by non-participation
- U.S. adversaries are using its absence from UNCLOS to push excessive maritime claims
- U.S. non-party status to UNCLOS is undermining ability to conduct maritime interdiction operations
Counter Argument: