Trump Orders Deregulation of the US Fishing Industry
April 18, 2025 – President Donald Trump yesterday announced an effort to create a “new era” of seafood policy, with an executive order that aims to “reduce the regulatory burden” on U.S. fisheries. Ocean sustainability groups have expressed concerns that the order could damage ocean ecosystems and deplete fisheries.
“The United States should be the world’s dominant seafood leader,” Trump wrote in the order, Restoring American Seafood Competitiveness. “But in addition to overregulation, unfair trade practices have put our seafood markets at a competitive disadvantage.”
The order tasks Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to work with the Department of Health and Human Services and the fishing industry to “immediately consider suspending, revising, or rescinding regulations that overly burden America’s commercial fishing, aquaculture, and fish processing industries at the fishery-specific level.” It also orders an examination of trade policies to benefit U.S. fishing.
U.S. fisheries experienced severe overfishing in the 1980s and 1990s, with essential fish stocks either depleting or collapsing. In the decades since, the stocks have recovered, in large part due to stricter fishing regulations and close monitoring. The government agency tasked with monitoring fish stocks, through scientific survey, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, underwent major personnel cuts after Trump’s inauguration.
The Department of Commerce fired more than 600 probationary employees in February. And while lower court judges ordered many of them reinstated in March, the Supreme Court has since paused some of the reinstatements. Workers told NBC News this week the agency is suffering under “intentional chaos,” due to the cuts. Firings have since resumed, Reuters reported on April 10.
Advocacy groups say Trump’s newest order endangers U.S. fisheries anew, at a time when they are facing increasing pressure from climate change.
