United States President Donald Trump is planning to take executive steps to allow the stockpiling of metals extracted from the Pacific Ocean, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday.

According to sources familiar with the matter, Trump is vying to dig and stock nickel, cobalt, copper, and manganese used to make batteries to counter China in the wake of the trade strains the countries imposed on each other. The need for minerals has widely been interpreted as the reason why the US president is looking to annex Greenland.

The US and China recently introduced a 125% tariff on each other's exports.