October 29, 2025 — The U.S. and South Korea have reached a trade deal that will reduce tariffs on the Asian nation from 25 percent to 15 percent, both countries announced on 29 October.
U.S. President Donald Trump initially threatened the 25 percent tariff in July, with a start date of 1 August. Since that time, all goods from the country – including seafood – have been subject to the duty.
October 27, 2025 — Lawmakers are girding for a fight against President Donald Trump’s apparent plans to open up the Atlantic and Pacific coastlines to offshore drilling.
In interviews Thursday, Democrats called the idea “not lawful,” a “huge mistake” and “absolutely ridiculous.” Coastal Republicans, for their part, said they would also oppose any offshore drilling, though at least one East Coast Republican was open to the idea — albeit with a caveat.
Trump faced bipartisan opposition when he attempted a similar move in 2020, during his first term. He eventually backed down following widespread outcry amid his reelection effort.
October 24, 2025 — U.S. President Donald Trump announced he is terminating all trade negotiations with Canada, the U.S.’s largest seafood trading partner, in response to a television advertisement featuring a quote from former President Ronald Reagan.
Trump, in a post on his social media platform Truth Social, said he was terminating the trade negotiations and that the Ronald Reagan Foundation “announced that Canada fraudulently used an advertisement, which is FAKE, featuring Ronald Reagan speaking negatively about tariffs.” The foundation had posted an update online saying it was “reviewing its legal options” on the advertisement, which directly quotes a real address by Reagan publicly available online.
October 23, 2025 — U.S. Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine) claims Maine’s lobster industry has been hit hard by U.S. President Donald Trump’s higher tariffs on imported steel and is asking his administration to insulate the sector from those costs.
“Lobstering has become a more expensive profession in recent years as lobstermen’s earnings per pound in 2024 decreased to some of the lowest levels in the past 75 years, and I continue to hear from lobstermen about the ways that tariffs have exacerbated this problem,” Collins wrote in an 20 October letter to U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick.
September 18, 2025 — The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council wants to undo fishing protections in the Pacific Ocean, which opponents say will hurt ocean ecosystems.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order in April to review regulations in U.S. marine monuments in an effort to promote domestic fishing.
As part of that review, WESPAC was asked to make recommendations to the U.S. Secretary of Commerce on what to do within Pacific monuments.
On Tuesday the council voted to endorse a July letter it drafted recommending the allowance of commercial fishing in three Pacific monuments — the Mariana Trench, Rose Atoll and Pāpahānaumokuākea marine national monuments.
The council also voted separately to repeal fishing prohibitions in the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument, formerly known as the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument.
September 8, 2025 — Massachusetts, and the wind projects that have invested millions to build off its coast, will have to wait a bit longer to see if a federal judge will provide any relief from President Donald Trump’s wind memorandum that has frozen offshore wind permitting for the last eight months.
Judge William G. Young, during a hearing on Thursday, again expressed some skepticism about the multistate lawsuit. In opening remarks, and during questioning to both parties, Young said that Trump has made his position against offshore wind very clear. So, if he were to rule in favor of the states (and against the memo), he asked what change it would make for the projects that have been stuck in permitting limbo.
“[Trump’s] view of the presidency is, those people who are subordinate to me are going to follow my instructions. That’s the presidency as we know it today,” Young said. “Given the president’s view, where does that get you? … He’ll tell [agencies] to deny [permits] and they will, because they have to follow orders.”
Massachusetts Deputy Attorney General Turner Smith in response said that although that may be true, the states will address it case by case and permit by permit, if necessary.
“They may decide to issue or deny a permit,” Smith said. “Our hope is that the agencies would take to heart that they are required to follow applicable law in processing and issuing these permits.”
U.S. Department of Justice attorney Michael Robertson, on behalf of the federal government, argued the states have not sufficiently proven violations of cited laws, and that if the judge were to rule in their favor, it should be on a permit by permit and project by project level.
Revolution Wind featured briefly in the hearing arguments. Late last month, the federal government issued a stop-work order on the under-construction project, citing Trump’s wind memo.
September 5, 2025 — Offshore wind developer US Wind has filed a cross claim against the Trump Administration in an ongoing legal battle over US Wind’s proposed project off the shores of Delmarva, according to court documents obtained by WBOC.
Filed on Sept. 3, US Wind’s cross claim against the federal government alleges the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the National Marine Fisheries Service are illegally seeking to vacate the Biden Administration’s previously approved permits that greenlit the US Wind offshore project.
As WBOC first reported, the Trump administration notified the US District Court in Delaware of its intention to withdraw federal approval of the permits on Aug. 22. Both the federal government and US Wind are listed as defendants in an ongoing lawsuit brought against them by Ocean City leaders, residents, businesses, and numerous other parties in an attempt to stop the offshore project. Because of their intent to reverse approval, the Trump Administration argues the lawsuit is about to be rendered moot.
September 3, 2025 — President Donald Trump’s administration cancelled almost $34 million intended to develop a vacant industrial facility in Salem into an offshore wind terminal, striking another blow against the already beleaguered New England Wind project slated for installation southwest of Nantucket and the struggling U.S. offshore wind industry at large.
Avangrid, the offshore wind developer behind both New England Wind and Vineyard Wind, planned to use Salem to stage the former project. It’s unclear how the loss of federal funding for the port project will impact New England Wind, or if the developers can complete the project under Trump’s regulatory regime.
New England Wind has already been substantially delayed as a result of previous federal efforts to curtail offshore wind development, which have held up power purchase agreements with Massachusetts’ utilities.
The lease areas for New England 1 and New England 2, located west of Vineyard Wind, would include 129 wind turbines that the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management estimates could power more than 900,000 homes each year.
September 3, 2025 — The federal government is now taking aim at New England Wind, asking a federal court to pause a lawsuit brought by island nonprofit ACK For Whales, saying it intends to seek remand and vacatur of the federal approval of the offshore wind project. It’s a move that, if granted, would effectively send the project back to square one and could make the case moot.
The announcement comes a week after the U.S. Department of Justice made a similar filing in the Town of Nantucket’s case against SouthCoast Wind. In that case, the DOJ asked the court to pause the suit while it reviewed SouthCoast’s permit.
September 2, 2025 — The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has ruled a large swath of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs are illegal, but the tariffs will stay in place as the case awaits appeal.
The court ruled that the sweeping tariffs on almost every country in the world Trump announced in April were an overreach of his authority to impose tariffs under federal economic emergency laws. Trump had issued the “reciprocal” tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), but the appeals court ruling said that the IEEPA does not have a mechanism to impose tariffs.