Saving Seafood

Trump’s tariffs back in court

July 31, 2025 — An appeals court may soon get in the way of President Trump’s trade agenda as his Aug. 1 deadline approaches to impose so-called ‘reciprocal’ duties on a host of countries.

One day ahead of that deadline, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit will convene across the street from the White House to decide whether the bulk of  Trump’s tariffs are legal.

Hanging in the balance at Thursday’s oral argument is whether Trump can use an emergency law to justify his sweeping reciprocal tariffs on countries globally and a series of specific levies on Canada, China and Mexico.

The Constitution vests Congress with the power to impose tariffs, so Trump can’t act unless lawmakers delegated him authority.

Trump points to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), a 1977 law that authorizes the president to impose necessary economic sanctions during an emergency to combat an “unusual and extraordinary threat.” Trump is the first president to attempt to leverage IEEPA to impose tariffs

Read the full article at The Hill

NEW YORK: NYS withdraws plan for offshore wind transmission line

July 30, 2025 — New York State’s Public Service Commission is withdrawing plans for a transmission line supporting offshore wind.

The line would have connected New York City with numerous offshore wind farms. But states are now facing federal pushback on developing wind power.

Earlier this year, the Trump administration attempted to stop development of New York’s Empire Wind Farm. Christopher Casey, New York utility regulatory director with the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the federal roadblocks make it harder to bolster this industry.

“There are permits and regulatory decisions that need to be made at both the state and the federal level,” said Casey. “If the federal government is putting up roadblocks wherever it can, then it is very difficult to move these projects – and ultimately, nothing can go forward.”

Read the full article at FingerLakes1.com

Trump says India will be hit with 25 percent tariff as global tariff pause deadline approaches

July 30, 2025 — U.S. President Donald Trump said India will be hit with a 25 percent tariff rate as of 1 August, the same date a range of other countries will also be hit by new tariffs if the deadline is not extended.

Trump first threatened to increase tariffs across almost every country in the world in early April before pausing them on most countries a few days later. At the time, India – the third-largest source of seafood imported to the U.S. by value – was being threatened with a 27 percent tariff.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

EU agrees to trade deal with US, setting tariff rate for goods at 15 percent

July 28, 2025 — The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump announced it has reached a trade deal with the European Union, setting a base tariff rate of 15 percent on E.U. goods.

Trump announced the deal just days before a 1 August deadline that would have seen the E.U.’s effective tariff rate jump to 30 percent. It also came as media reported E.U. diplomats were considering using wide-ranging “anti-coercion” measures, often dubbed the “nuclear option,” as a means of discouraging the tariffs.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Trump announces trade deal with Japan and Philippines, unveils formal deal with Indonesia

July 23, 2025 — U.S. President Donald Trump announced the country reached a trade deal with Japan on 22 July, granting the country a reprieve from the potential 25 percent tariffs he was threatening just weeks earlier.

Trump posted on his social media site Truth Social that Japan will now face a 15 percent “reciprocal” tariff in the U.S. and claimed Japan will invest USD 550 billion (EUR 469 billion) in the U.S., “which will receive 90 percent of the profits.” Trump later said that the country agreed to buy billions in military and other equipment.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Trump, Congress further chill offshore wind industry

July 22, 2025 — The budget law Congress passed this month — termed the “One Big Beautiful Bill” — took another swipe at the offshore wind industry, limiting substantial Biden-era tax credits that would allow wind developers to save or recoup hundreds of millions of dollars to build their projects.

Days after its passage, President Donald Trump signed an executive order aiming to further restrict access to these tax credits for renewable energy projects. And last week, the Interior Department issued a memo adding cumbersome review procedures for wind and solar.

Trump’s order directs the Treasury Department to issue guidance and take action next month. Experts are not sure what that will look like, but these recent Congressional and executive actions could imperil two Massachusetts offshore wind projects: New England Wind and SouthCoast Wind.

Much like Trump’s day-one memorandum freezing offshore wind permitting, experts say, the impacts will depend on what stage a project is at relative to construction. For pending projects, they could be enormous.

“The abrupt termination of credits and the additional tangle of rules imposed on these credits could be quite devastating,” said Seth Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Tax Law Center at NYU Law.

Here’s what a rewriting of tax credits means for wind projects

President Joe Biden’s historic 2022 climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA, spurred investment and buildout in the offshore wind industry and the wider clean energy sector.

It earmarked more than $360 billion for credits, loans and grants. The Oceantic Network, an industry organization, said the IRA was the “single most important piece of legislation yet passed to accelerate the adoption of offshore wind energy in the U.S.”

The credits were scheduled to phase out in 2032. But the new Trump budget law not only phases the subsidies out completely in 2030, it gives projects a new deadline to begin construction if they want the subsidies: July 4, 2026. If they start later, they face an even tighter deadline to finish: they must be operational by the end of 2027 to get the subsidies.

“Everything was going along swimmingly until this new legislation, which really accelerates the process by which projects have to start construction,” said John C. Crossley, a renewable energy attorney at K&L Gates.

It gets more complicated: the IRS defines the “beginning of construction” in two ways. First, a project can be considered “started” if the developer spends at least 5% of the project’s total cost. The second option is for the developer to undertake physical work of a “significant nature.” That can look like the construction of turbine foundations.

Under the longstanding IRS language, either one counts as starting construction.

But it’s these longtime definitions — these options for developers — that Trump is targeting through his recent executive order seeking to bring “an end to years of subsidies.” He has directed the Treasury Department to revise existing guidelines to “ensure that policies concerning the ‘beginning of construction’ are not circumvented.”

Read the full article at The New Bedford Light

US senators lay out NOAA Fisheries priorities in budget bill

July 22, 2025 — The U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations has laid out its fisheries and seafood priorities for fiscal year 2026, reporting out several provisions to guide NOAA Fisheries’ activities over the next year.

The U.S. Congress is now deep into its annual budget process, with Senate and house committees and subcommittees working through the Trump administration’s budget requests and drafting the appropriations bills needed to fund the federal government. While lawmakers don’t always successfully pass the full suite of appropriations bills, instead turning to continuing resolutions to avoid a government shutdown, the appropriations process offers lawmakers the most direct opportunity to craft policy for federal agencies.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Trump reportedly considering delay on China tariffs, EU considering “nuclear option” on trade

July 22, 2025 — The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump is reportedly considering an extension on a trade deadline with China that would see higher tariffs on goods as of 12 August if a deal is not reached.

The U.S. and China both agreed to a 90-day pause on high tariffs in May after a series of escalations by the Trump administration ended up with tariffs as high as 145 percent on goods from China. China, in response, imposed tariffs of its own, reaching as high as 125 percent on U.S. goods.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Senate budget would shrink NOAA Fisheries’ budget slightly, despite Trump administration’s demand for steep cuts

July 21, 2025 — The Republican controlled U.S. Senate is set up to reject many of U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposed cuts to NOAA Fisheries, proposing a slight decrease for the agency instead.

NOAA has been one of the agencies targeted by the Trump administration for cuts; during the first several months of Trump’s second term, the government has laid off hundreds of NOAA employees and rescinded much of the agency’s climate-related funding. Trump is seeking even deeper cuts, however, to NOAA Fisheries.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Reopening the Pacific Monuments

July 21, 2025 — Reopening the waters around the Pacific Monuments will help the U.S. fleet, but they still need to fight a battle in the marketplace.

On April 17, U.S. tuna fishermen in the Pacific welcomed President Donald Trump’s executive order (EO) 14276 directing Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick to review marine national monuments and remove commercial fishing restrictions that conflict with national seafood priorities. Trump also issued a proclamation immediately opening the waters around the Pacific Remote Islands Heritage Marine National Monument, one of the four Pacific monuments.

“The president’s proclamation, issued the same day as his EO 14276, basically opens up the waters between 50 and 200 miles around the Pacific Remote Islands Monument – the islands of Wake, Johnston, and Jarvis – for commercial fishing,” says Eric Kingma, executive director of the Hawaii Longline Association (HLA).

The waters between 50 and 200 miles around the Remote Islands and three other monuments in the Pacific – Papahānaumokuākea, Marianas Trench, and Rose Atoll – had been closed since 2016 to protect tuna and generate spillover of tuna from the protected areas into surrounding waters.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman