One proclamation opens Pacific Ocean waters to commercial fishing for American fleets.
President Donald Trump directed support for the American seafood industry with a series of orders signed in the Oval Office on April 17.
An executive order titled “Restoring American Seafood Competitiveness” seeks to strengthen the United States’ control of its more than four million square miles of highly productive fishing grounds.
“With this vast resource and centuries of hard work from American fishermen, our nation has the greatest seafood in the world,” Trump wrote in the order.
“The United States should be the world’s dominant seafood leader.”
His directive laments that nearly 90 percent of seafood sold in the country is imported. The president blamed the predicament on overregulation and unfair trade practices.
“The erosion of American seafood competitiveness at the hands of unfair foreign trade practices must end,” Trump wrote.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are directed by the order to immediately consider rescinding or revising existing regulations. Within 30 days, Lutnick is instructed to identify the most burdensome rules and take action to suspend or eliminate them.
Lutnick is also directed to consult with Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins to create an “America First Seafood Strategy” with a goal of promoting domestic fishery and aquaculture production and increasing sales through education and outreach programs teaching the public about the health benefits of eating seafood.
Another proclamation signed by the president opens the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument, a chain of islands and small outcroppings approximately 750 miles west of Hawaii, to commercial fishing for American fleets.
Meant to unleash opportunity for fishing companies and bolster the American Samoa economy, which relies on fishing to provide more than 80 percent of the territory’s economic activity, the order permits U.S.-flagged commercial ships to fish within 50 to 200 nautical miles of the national monument’s borders.
Prior to the proclamation, regulations enacted and subsequently expanded by Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama prohibited fishing across more than 400,000 square miles of the Pacific Ocean.
Strict regulations caused U.S. fishing fleets to lose access to almost half of the waters included in the nation’s exclusive economic zone surrounding the Pacific Islands, according to the order.
