Opinion: Trump’s Tuna Gamble in the Pacific — What Happened to the US-Pacific Fishing Treaty?
In a move that sent shockwaves through conservation circles and Pacific regional diplomacy, U.S. President Donald J. Trump has signed an executive order reopening vast sections of the United States’ Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in the Pacific Ocean for commercial fishing by American-flagged vessels. The decision was celebrated by representatives from American Samoa and Hawaii—but the rest of the Pacific should be asking a serious question: What happened to the U.S.-Pacific Tuna Treaty of 2024?
That treaty, signed just last year, was widely regarded as a breakthrough for Pacific Island nations. It aimed to create a shared framework for managing the world’s most valuable tuna fishery, built on sustainability, equity, and science-based conservation. With Trump’s recent order, however, all that progress appears to be at risk—sidelined by executive action that prioritizes short-term political gains and industry lobbying over long-term regional cooperation and ocean health.
Let us be clear: This is not a debate about livelihoods. Tuna fishing is central to the economies of Pacific nations and territories. But what we are witnessing is not the restoration of indigenous rights or the revival of local economies—it is the deliberate rollback of environmental protections enacted under the Obama administration, which designated vast marine sanctuaries to protect fragile ecosystems and declining tuna stocks.
During the signing event, Trump and his allies framed the previous conservation measures as an attack on American industry and sovereignty, claiming that they had unfairly restricted American fishermen from accessing their own waters. “Three Californias,” they called it—referring to the size of the reopened fishing zone. But nowhere in the discussion was there mention of conservation, climate change, or the treaty obligations the United States holds with its Pacific partners.
The hypocrisy could not be more glaring. In April 2024, Congresswoman Aumua Amata Radewagen of American Samoa took to the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives to speak in strong support of the Pacific–U.S. Tuna Treaty, highlighting it as an essential instrument for mutual cooperation, regional stability, and economic development. Now, just one year later, she stood beside President Trump applauding a measure that undermines that very treaty—a treaty she helped champion. Rather than defending the integrity of the agreement, she now backs a new policy that throws conservation overboard.
This contradiction demands clarification. Pacific leaders must ask President Trump and Congresswoman Amata Radewagen to explain their current position. It is deeply confusing and politically divisive for the region. How can leaders and negotiators trust the U.S. to honor any future agreements if existing ones can be swept away so quickly?
This is especially important because tuna are migratory fish, moving freely across EEZ boundaries and into the high seas. What the United States does in its zone affects the entire Western and Central Pacific fishery. Weakening protections in one area increases the burden on others. It invites overfishing. It pressures local stocks. And it threatens the very foundation of the Blue Pacific vision—the Pacific Islands’ collective commitment to ocean sustainability and regional solidarity.
Even worse, this decision appears to have been made without consultation or coordination with Pacific Island nations who are parties to the 2024 treaty. Where are the voices of the Pacific Islands Forum? The Forum Fisheries Agency? The leaders who only last year championed the treaty as a cornerstone of Pacific empowerment?
In the absence of a response, the U.S. narrative dominates—and it is a dangerous one. It paints conservation as an obstacle to prosperity, while blaming foreign fleets (China, Taiwan, Japan) for “stealing” fish just outside U.S. zones. These populist talking points ignore the region’s complex work to strengthen multilateral fishery governance, monitor illegal fishing, and push for fairer economic returns.
President Trump’s order is not just a domestic policy move—it’s a regional affront. It threatens the cooperative spirit behind decades of Pacific diplomacy and risks turning the ocean into a battleground for geopolitical one-upmanship.
To Pacific nations, the message is clear: You must speak up. Because silence will be seen as consent.
If we are truly committed to a Pacific future built on sustainability, sovereignty, and solidarity, we cannot allow even the most powerful countries to disregard treaties the moment they become inconvenient. And we must not let tuna—a shared and sacred resource—be sacrificed at the altar of political theatre.
So again we ask: What happened to the 2024 U.S.-Pacific Tuna Treaty?
The Pacific deserves an answer. And the ocean deserves better.
By Melino Maka
Tonga Independent News
