US President Donald Trump issued an executive order aimed at increasing domestic seafood production by directing the Commerce Department to loosen regulations and by opening up marine monuments to commercial fishing, the White House said on Thursday.
The order is Trump's latest effort to unwind burdensome regulations on American businesses.
"The order strengthens the US fishing industry by reducing regulatory burdens, combating unfair foreign trade practices, and enhancing domestic seafood production and exports," the White House statement said.
The United States, despite controlling over four million square miles of prime fishing grounds, imports nearly 90 per cent of its seafood, leading to a trade deficit exceeding $20 billion, the White House said.
Like in other western countries, the deliberate hamstringing of the US fishing industry via activist pressure only moves the industry offshore to jurisdictions with poor environmental and human rights records and adds to the product transport distance.
In a separate proclamation, Trump opened up the 400,000 acres of the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument, which sits south and west of Hawaii, to commercial fishing.
America’s $320 billion fishing industry relies on a branch of the federal government, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, to manage coastal fisheries.
Under a 1976 law, NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service develops management plans for 45 fisheries, setting quotas and determining the start and close of fishing seasons, in consultation with federal government scientists and local fishermen.
(Reporting by Nichola Groom; Editing by Nia Williams)