Shrinking Oceanic Protections and the Expansion of Commercial Fishing Freedoms

In 2009, President George W. Bush created three marine national monuments conserving and protecting over 195,000 square miles.¹ These designations created environmental safeguards by prohibiting commercial fishing and the extraction of natural resources within the area.² In 2014, President Barack Obama used his executive power to establish and expand existing national monuments in the Pacific Ocean, specifically, expanding the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument (PRIMNM) from 80,000 square miles to approximately 490,000 square miles.³ On April 17th, 2025, President Donald Trump issued a proclamation and an executive order aimed at rolling back these protections. The executive proclamation and order function as a two-pronged approach: titled “Restoring American Seafood Competitiveness” and “Unleashing American Commercial Fishing in the Pacific,” respectively, they aim to reshape U.S. marine policy.⁴

1. Unleashing American Commercial Fishing in the Pacific

The presidential proclamation, “Unleashing American Commercial Fishing in the Pacific,” seeks to reduce the protective scope of the PRIMNM by allowing U.S.-flagged vessels to fish inwards 50 to 200 nautical miles in the protected zone.⁵

President Trump and his administration are adamant that the protections given to marine national monuments are ineffective, considering many of the species protected by these monuments are migratory in nature.⁶ Additionally, President Trump argues that existing protections under regulations such as the Endangered Species Act and Magnuson-Stevens Act, are sufficient to safeguard marine biodiversity, rendering the added protections from the national monument unnecessary and overly burdensome to U.S. commercial fishing and communities that depend on the fishing industry.⁷ Nonetheless, removing protective barriers marks a significant shift in marine national policy, and more broadly, in domestic policy, with President Trump becoming the first president since Dwight D. Eisenhower to formally reduce or limit the scope of an existing national monument.⁸

It also brings a legal question to the forefront: what are the president’s powers under the Antiquities Act? In response to growing concerns over the looting of architectural and cultural sites, Congress passed the Antiquities Act of 1906, giving the president broad authority over the establishment of national monuments but provides some guidelines and limitations, leading to the protection of millions of acres of land.⁹ In the previous Trump administration, President Trump attempted to reduce the size of two national monuments, leading to litigation over whether the president has the authority to rescind, limit, or fundamentally alter previously established national monuments.¹⁰ The second Trump administration's recent presidential proclamation limiting the protective scope of a previously established national monument has once again raised these questions.¹¹

Earthjustice, on behalf of other public interest and environmental law organizations, brought these concerns of presidential overreach to the forefront in their recent lawsuit.¹² The lawsuit, filed on May 22nd, 2025, argues that the Antiquities Act does not grant the president the power to rescind, limit or alter protections of existing national monuments and that only Congress has the authority to make such changes.¹³ Furthermore, this complaint argues that the Secretaries of Commerce and of the Interior, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the National Marine Fisheries Service (“NMFS”) violated the Administrative Procedures Act (“APA”) by skipping the formal notice-and-comment process required to change federal regulations.¹⁴ Since the president's power under the Antiquities Act has never been decided in a court of law before, it is unclear what the outcome will be. If this issue reaches the Supreme Court, it could fundamentally redefine, or solidify, the presidential power over national monuments. It could also firmly establish safeguards for one of the world’s largest safe havens, millions of fish, seabirds and many threatened or endangered species.

2. Restoring American Seafood Competitiveness

The accompanying executive order, titled “Restoring American Seafood Competitiveness,” outlines a broader deregulatory agenda, focused on reducing federal oversight, boosting domestic production, and pushing back against foreign competition in the seafood market. This order frames the PRIMNM as an obstacle and burden to commercial fishing, causing the U.S. to become more vulnerable to overreliance on other nations for seafood and claiming that the U.S. has a $20 billion trade deficit in the fishing industry.¹⁵

Overall, this order seeks to firmly establish an America First seafood strategy by directing the Secretary of Commerce, in coordination with other agencies, to review current regulations, and roll back unnecessary ones, with the objective of maintaining only those restrictions needed to ensure healthy fish stocks.¹⁶ Additionally, this order calls on the Regional Fishery Management Councils to revise their regulatory recommendations and adopt policies that: (1) increase production, (2) stabilize markets, (3) improve accessibility, (4) strengthen economic profitability, and (5) prevent unnecessary closures. ¹⁷

Together, the April 17, 2025, proclamation and executive order reflect a dramatic shift in federal ocean policy. They mark a move away from the preservation of marine ecosystems toward protecting and revitalizing trade competitiveness. Whether these actions will withstand judicial scrutiny remains to be seen, but ultimately, they may redefine the scope of presidential power under the Antiquities Act and shape oceanic conservation for decades to come.

¹ Proclamation No. 8336, 74 Fed. Reg. 1565 (Jan. 12, 2009).
² Id.
³ Proclamation No. 9173, 79 Fed. Reg. 58645 (Sept. 25, 2014); For context, Texas is the second-largest U.S. state and is approximately 268,000 square miles in size. See State Area Measurements and Internal Point Coordinates, U.S. Census Bureau (Feb. 27, 2017).
⁴ Proclamation No. 10918, 90 Fed. Reg. 16987 (Apr. 22, 2025); Exec. Order No. 14276, 90 Fed. Reg. 16993 (Apr. 22, 2025).
⁵ Proclamation No. 10918, 90 Fed. Reg. 16987 (Apr. 22, 2025).
⁶ Id.
⁷ Proclamation No. 10918, 90 Fed. Reg. 16987 (Apr. 22, 2025).
⁸ Amy Joi O'Donoghue, Times in history when U.S. presidents have acted to shrink monuments, Desert News (June 12, 2017).
⁹ Kathleen D. Browning, Implementing the Antiquities Act: A Survey of Archaeological Permits 1906–1935, in Studies in Archeology and Ethnography No. 2 (Nat’l Park Serv., Archeology & Ethnography Program, Nat’l Ctr. for Cultural Res., U.S. Dep’t of the Interior 2003); 54 U.S.C. § 320301 (2023).
¹⁰ The Associated Press, Justice Department Says Trump Can Cancel National Monuments That Protect Landscapes, NPR (June 11, 2025) (President Biden reversed the reduction and litigation over President Trump’s actions are ongoing).
¹¹ Proclamation No. 10918, 90 Fed. Reg. 16987 (Apr. 22, 2025).
¹² Lawsuit Challenges Trump Order Opening Pacific Monument to Commercial Fishing, Earthjustice (May 22, 2025).
¹³ Complaint at 6, Kāpa‘a Conservation Council For Hawai‘i v. Trump, No. 1:25-cv-00257 (D. Haw. filed May 22, 2025).
¹⁴ Id.
¹⁵ Cliff White, US seafood trade deficit hit USD 20.3 billion in 2023, SeafoodSource (Feb. 12, 2024).
¹⁶ Proclamation No. 10918, 90 Fed. Reg. 16987 (Apr. 22, 2025).
¹⁷ Id.