In his second term, President Trump has taken action to remove protections from marine areas stretching across more than 1 million square miles, threatening iconic seascapes with industrial-scale fishing fleets.
With ocean health increasingly under threat from climate change and human harm, the Trump administration is putting America’s ocean conservation legacy at risk. Government agencies that manage our ocean have lost long-term scientific and ocean expertise following budget cuts and staff purges. On top of this, the Trump administration is rolling back protections for endangered marine species, reducing scientific monitoring, and opening marine protected areas to commercial fishing.
Analysis by the Center for American Progress and Marine Conservation Institute finds that three presidential proclamations issued by President Donald Trump would result in the removal of protections for a vast amount of U.S. water within five marine national monuments. As the administration’s directives are implemented, these areas would soon allow industrial fishing and potential deep-sea mining in more than 1 million square miles of American ocean—a combined area four times the size of Texas.