A US-New Zealand deal to co-fund a major new port at Tongareva in the Cook Islands is being condemned by Greenpeace Aotearoa as resource grabbing and a potential gateway to deep-sea mining, as the battle over critical minerals and geopolitical influence intensifies across Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa.
The agreement was announced on the margins of the Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting in Palau, with the United States committing US$50 million and New Zealand contributing about US$10 million towards upgrading the port at Penrhyn Atoll, known as Tongareva. New Zealand will manage construction.
Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown, New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters and US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau announced the project, presenting it as a major infrastructure investment that would improve transport connections and access for the remote northern Cook Islands community.
Greenpeace sees something considerably more concerning.
Greenpeace calls port a Trojan horse
Greenpeace Aotearoa spokesperson Juressa Lee says the investment cannot be separated from Washington’s growing interest in the Pacific’s critical minerals and deep seabed resources.
The environmental organisation has labelled the project a gross act of colonialism and resource grabbing, alleging it forms part of a wider US strategy to establish access to seabed minerals.
Greenpeace points to comments from Landau linking the investment to the Critical Minerals Framework signed between the Cook Islands and United States earlier this year.
That connection is central to Greenpeace’s concerns.
The waters surrounding the Cook Islands contain significant deposits of polymetallic nodules, mineral-rich formations found across parts of the deep ocean floor.
The Penrhyn Basin itself contains high-grade nodules that prospective deep-sea mining interests want to exploit, while the US research vessel Okeanos Explorer has been exploring the basin during July and August, according to Greenpeace.
Port’s official purpose is different
It is important, however, to distinguish Greenpeace’s allegations from what the governments involved have formally announced.
The official port agreement has been presented as an infrastructure project rather than a deep-sea mining or military development.
The joint announcement reportedly makes no reference to future defence use of the port, while Brown says the upgrade will provide safer landings, better access to essential services and improved transport connections for Tongareva.
Peters has described the project as a significant example of cooperation between New Zealand, the Cook Islands and the United States.
The idea was discussed during Peters’ visit to Washington in April, when he met Landau and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
But Greenpeace argues the surrounding critical-minerals agenda means the project cannot be viewed simply as a wharf upgrade.
A strategic island with a military history
Tongareva’s history adds another layer to the debate.
The remote atoll was used by the United States during the Second World War.
US Navy construction units began building a runway there in 1942, with additional runways later developed and American military aircraft operating from the island. Around 1,000 support personnel were reportedly based there before departing after the war.
That history, combined with its location and the mineral resources of the surrounding ocean, has fuelled questions about the strategic significance of the investment.
The Pacific is increasingly becoming a focus of competition among larger powers, particularly the United States and China.
That geopolitical contest has already been evident at the Pacific Islands Forum itself, where disputes involving China and Taiwan have threatened to overshadow regional priorities.
Greenpeace says Pacific nations should not become pawns in that competition.
Who gets to decide what happens to the Pacific?
For Lee, the issue ultimately comes back to Pacific sovereignty.
She argues the Pacific Islands Forum should be a place where Pacific leaders build consensus around the needs and values of their own peoples, rather than a platform through which larger powers pursue strategic interests.
Greenpeace is particularly critical of what it describes as Washington’s willingness to pursue deep-sea minerals for strategic and military purposes.
The organisation disputes arguments that seabed minerals are primarily needed for a global green-energy transition, arguing increasing demand is also being driven by defence and strategic supply-chain objectives.
Greenpeace says Pacific leaders must therefore ask not simply whether outside investment brings new infrastructure, but who ultimately benefits from that investment and what comes next.
Pacific split over deep-sea mining
Deep-sea mining has become one of the most contentious environmental issues facing the Pacific.
Supporters argue polymetallic nodules could provide valuable minerals while generating economic opportunities for Pacific states with enormous ocean territories but relatively small land masses.
Opponents warn the deep ocean remains poorly understood and that industrial-scale mining could destroy ecosystems before scientists fully comprehend them.
Greenpeace is campaigning for deep-sea mining to be stopped and says extracting nodules with emerging technologies risks irreversible damage to deep-sea life and wider ocean health.
Pacific governments themselves do not hold a single position.
Some are interested in seabed minerals as a potential economic opportunity, while others are pushing for a precautionary pause or moratorium.
That makes the argument about sovereignty particularly complicated.
Pacific sovereignty also means recognising that individual Pacific governments have the authority to make decisions about their own development — even where environmental groups or neighbouring states strongly disagree with them.
Nuclear-free legacy invoked
Greenpeace is also invoking the Pacific’s nuclear-free history.
Lee argues the region has previously demonstrated its capacity to resist the strategic priorities of powerful states through collective action.
The Treaty of Rarotonga became a powerful expression of the Pacific’s opposition to nuclear weapons and testing and remains an important symbol of regional self-determination.
Greenpeace says that history should inform the debate over seabed extraction and military competition today.
Its argument is that Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa should not again become a strategic resource zone where outside powers determine what is extracted, tested or positioned across the region.
New Zealand caught between partnership and protest
New Zealand’s US$10 million contribution places Wellington directly inside that debate.
For the Government, the investment demonstrates practical support for Pacific infrastructure and New Zealand’s relationships with both the Cook Islands and United States.
For Greenpeace, it demonstrates something else entirely.
The organisation says New Zealand risks assisting Washington’s strategic minerals agenda rather than standing alongside Pacific communities demanding stronger ocean protection.
Greenpeace is also linking the Tongareva announcement to New Zealand’s own discussions with the United States around critical minerals.
It warns that any agreement allowing foreign strategic priorities to override opposition from iwi, communities and environmental experts would repeat the same extractive approach closer to home.
Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa is more than a resource deposit
For Māori and Pacific peoples, the controversy touches on a much deeper question about how the ocean itself is understood.
Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa is not an empty space between countries.
It carries whakapapa.
It feeds communities.
It connects generations of Māori and Pacific peoples whose tūpuna navigated its waters long before contemporary national boundaries were drawn across maps.
That makes decisions about extracting resources from the deep seabed fundamentally different from simply opening another terrestrial mine.
The potential environmental consequences sit alongside questions of mana moana, Indigenous rights, intergenerational responsibility and who holds authority over the Pacific’s future.
Port deal exposes bigger battle for the Pacific
The Tongareva project may ultimately deliver exactly what its government supporters promise: safer infrastructure and stronger transport connections for a remote community.
But its announcement alongside growing US interest in critical minerals ensures questions about its wider strategic purpose will not disappear.
The Pacific Islands Forum is already grappling with competing international powers seeking influence across one of the world’s largest and most strategically important regions.
Greenpeace’s challenge to Pacific leaders is therefore much bigger than one port.
It wants them to draw a line around deep-sea mining before an industry is established that may prove impossible to reverse.
And it wants New Zealand to decide where it stands.
Is Aotearoa helping Pacific communities build infrastructure on their own terms — or helping a superpower establish the foundations for the next great resource rush?
For Greenpeace, the answer will be determined by what happens after the concrete is poured at Tongareva.
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