The Moon Treaty provides that the Moon and its natural resources are the common heritage of mankind and the harvesting of those resources is forbidden except through an international regime established to govern the exploitation of such resources when it becomes feasible to do so.
While we never ratified it it has become accepted as international law because we never directly opposed it. I would have been a lot more impressed if Gingrich had said he would openly defy it rather than his ridiculous promise that will fail miserably.
And you really think the Chinese will care about that if they get there first?