The Chesapeake Bay isn’t just a body of water. It’s Maryland’s beating heart, a place where families bond over striped bass fishing, where small businesses thrive and where generations have built their lives around a healthy and productive marine ecosystem.
But that way of life is now at risk. Not because of a lack of effort by Marylanders, but because of unchecked industrial exploitation by a foreign-controlled company operating just beyond the horizon. Each year, a Canadian-controlled company vacuums up millions of pounds of Atlantic menhaden, tiny forage fish that serve as the foundation of the entire marine food chain.
These menhaden aren’t going to feed American families. They’re being processed into fish meal and fish oil, largely for export. In the process, they’re robbing our striped bass, tuna, whales and ospreys of their essential food source. They’re robbing us, robbing our local bait shops, charter captains and coastal marinas, and they are robbing Maryland’s outdoor recreation economy of the resources it needs to survive.
This isn’t just an environmental crisis. It’s also an economic crisis. Recreational fishing drives a $138 billion national economy and supports over 700,000 American jobs. In 2016, the Atlantic Coast striped bass fishery GDP was over $10 billion and supported over 100,000 jobs. Since 2016, the Atlantic Coast striped bass recreational harvest has declined by 50%.
Maryland’s striped bass fishery GDP was over $1 billion and supported over 10,000 jobs. Since 2016, the striped bass recreational harvest has declined by 80% in Maryland.
The math is simple: fewer forage fish means fewer predators. Fewer predators mean fewer charter trips, fewer tourists and fewer dollars in the pockets of working families. And yet, the federal government has allowed this ecological looting to continue under outdated policies and bureaucratic inertia.
Fortunately, change is within reach, and it comes in the form of a bold, America First solution. President Donald J. Trump has the chance to sign an executive order that would ban industrial “reduction fishing” in state and federal waters along the Atlantic and Gulf of America. This action would prohibit trawling for forage fish, direct NOAA to manage these fish for the ecosystem rather than foreign profit and end the exploitation of American resources by foreign fleets.
It’s not just the right move for the environment; it’s the right move for American workers. And it’s the kind of strong, decisive leadership that President Trump is known for.
Throughout his career and presidency, Donald Trump has stood up for the forgotten men and women of this country. He stopped the Pebble Mine to protect Alaska’s Bristol Bay. He delivered historic investments in the Everglades. He signed the Great American Outdoors Act, ensuring public lands and waters are accessible for future generations.
This is his chance to do it again — this time for the Chesapeake Bay and Maryland’s coastal economy.
Some will try to delay. Some will say we need more compromise or that we need more studies. But the data is clear. The Atlantic herring populations have dropped to 15% of target levels. American shad are below 10% of historic abundance. River herring populations have collapsed by 93%. These declines aren’t random. They are the direct result of a system that has favored a handful of foreign-affiliated industrial fleets over local American communities.
President Trump’s executive order would reverse that trend and usher in what I call the “Golden Age of Fishing in America.” It would restore balance to our waters, revive our economy and protect the culture we hold dear. It would show that promises made really do mean promises kept.
Mr. President, Maryland is watching. The bay is waiting. With one stroke of your pen, you can put an end to this ecological injustice and cement your legacy as the leader who brought American fishing back to life.
Let’s make history and “Make America Fish Again” — by saving the bay, protecting our jobs and putting Maryland’s fishermen first.
Phil Zalesak is president of the Southern Maryland Recreational Fishing Organization.