India, Sept. 20 -- US President Donald Trump declared "The Moon Is Ours" in a Truth Social post on September 6, accompanied by an image of the lunar surface with an American flag and a series of other posts featuring the US Space Force and AI-generated imagery. The US remains one of the leading nations in lunar exploration, but the claim collides with more than half a century of international law that says no country, including the US, can own the Moon.

The relevant law is the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, negotiated with American backing amidst the Cold War. Its principles are clear on sovereignty, but what it leaves unresolved is a more commercially urgent question: whether a country or a company can own the resources it digs out of the ...