{"id":76792,"date":"2026-03-24T10:32:02","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T01:32:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/mar\/24\/tonga-us-deal-deep-sea-minerals-environmental-concern"},"modified":"2026-03-24T10:32:02","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T01:32:02","slug":"tonga-pm-welcomes-us-deal-to-explore-deep-sea-minerals-amid-environmental-concerns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=76792","title":{"rendered":"Tonga PM welcomes US deal to explore deep-sea minerals amid environmental concerns"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Exclusive:<strong> <\/strong>Pacific island\u2019s new leader Lord Fakaf\u0101nua discusses \u2018exciting\u2019 US partnership as critics fear impacts of seabed exploration<\/p>\n<p>The recently elected leader of Tonga has described a deal to partner with the US on deep-sea mineral exploration as an \u201cexciting development\u201d amid concern in the small Pacific nation over the practice of seabed mining and the potential environmental impact.<\/p>\n<p>Tonga is located in the South Pacific Ocean, a region attracting growing interest over whether <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/rare-earths\">critical minerals<\/a> buried in the seabed could be extracted to help power industries and green technologies.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/mar\/24\/tonga-us-deal-deep-sea-minerals-environmental-concern\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Exclusive: Pacific island\u2019s new leader Lord Fakaf\u0101nua discusses \u2018exciting\u2019 US partnership as critics fear impacts of seabed explorationThe recently elected leader of Tonga has described a deal to partner with the US on deep-sea mineral exploration as a&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5229,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,3361,65,730,467,874,3085,280,47,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-deep-sea-mining","category-environment","category-mining","category-oceans","category-pacific-islands","category-pacific-leaders-in-their-words","category-tonga","category-us-news","category-world-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5229"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=76792"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76792\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76793,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76792\/revisions\/76793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=76792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=76792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=76792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}