Trump Orders Changes to Seafood Import Monitoring Program as Part of Broader Effort
An executive order issued by President Donald Trump April 17 directs the Commerce Department to reconsider aspects of the Seafood Import Monitoring Program, among other things.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
If your job depends on informed compliance, you need International Trade Today. Delivered every business day and available any time online, only International Trade Today helps you stay current on the increasingly complex international trade regulatory environment.
Titled Restoring American Seafood Competitiveness, the order seeks to promote U.S. seafood production and increase exports, noting that nearly 90% of U.S.-consumed seafood is imported, and that the “seafood trade deficit stands at over $20 billion.”
The order directs Commerce 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 directs the creation by Commerce and the U.S. Trade Representative of a “comprehensive seafood trade strategy” to improve access to foreign markets and address unfair trade practices.
It also says the U.S. trade representative will examine “the relevant trade practices of major seafood-producing nations, including with regard to [Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU)] fishing and the use of forced labor in the seafood supply chain, and consider appropriate responses, including pursuing solutions through negotiations or trade enforcement authorities, such as under section 301.”
The order says Commerce should “immediately consider revising or rescinding recent expansions” of SIMP to “unnecessary species.” Commerce itself rescinded a proposed expansion to new species in November 2023 (see 2311140039). It also says Commerce should “further improve the program to more effectively target high-risk shipments from nations that routinely violate international fishery regulations.”
The order says cost savings from improving SIMP should be used “to improve thorough checks at United States ports to prevent IUU seafood from entering the market,” including by way of “improved technology to identify foreign fishery-related violations.”