April 18, 2025 — President Donald Trump on Thursday issued a proclamation saying he is easing federal restrictions on commercial fishing in a vast protected area of the central Pacific known as the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument.
Trump said he will allow U.S.-flagged vessels to fish within 50 to 200 nautical miles of the landward boundaries of the monument, which covers some 490,000 square miles of open ocean, coral reef and island habitats. Located south and west of Hawaii, the area is home to seven national wildlife refuges. It includes some of the Earth’s last pristine maritime environments, serving as a sanctuary for species such as endangered sea turtles, sharks and migratory birds, according to marine wildlife experts.
In a separate executive order Thursday, Trump also said he would reduce regulations on commercial fishing more broadly and asked his secretary of commerce to “identify the most heavily overregulated fisheries” and take action to “reduce the regulatory burden on them.”
Trump’s directives, which are likely to attract legal challenges, seek to weaken protections initially set up by his predecessors. President George W. Bush in 2009 established the monument and restricted oil exploration and commercial fishing within it. In 2014, his successor Barack Obama, expanded the protected area to more than 490,000 square miles.
Trump, in the proclamation, said existing environmental laws provide sufficient protection for marine wildlife in the area and that many of the fish species in the monument are migratory.
“I find that appropriately managed commercial fishing would not put objects of scientific and historic interest [within the monument] at risk,” he said.
Bob Vanasse, executive director of the commercial fishing trade group Saving Seafood, said in an email that the shift in policy “does not create a commercial fishing free-for-all in the monuments.”
“Commercial fishing in the monuments will be allowed only under fishery management plans that manage the fisheries sustainably under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act,” Vanasse said, referring to the law that governs fishing in federal waters.