The United States alone is responsible for roughly half of the world’s ocean monitoring platforms (1). In May, the US government announced plans to decommission and remove more than 900 deep-sea instruments moored across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans (2). Although implementation has since been paused (3), the episode exposed the vulnerability of a global ocean observation system that is essential to global risk management infrastructure. The international community must take urgent steps to broaden the coalition of countries investing in ocean observation infrastructure.