The Trump administration on Thursday rescinded a ban on fishing a New England waterway imposed by Presidents Obama and Biden that had blocked fishermen from accessing sea beds rich with scallops.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration opened up access to 171 square miles in the northeastern region of Georges Bank, a sea floor that sits in the Gulf of Maine bordering Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and Cape Sable Island, Nova Scotia. It separates the Gulf of Maine from the Atlantic Ocean.
In honor of his administration revoking the ban, President Trump declared July 2 to be “National Scallops Day.”
Mr. Trump said the move fulfills “the dream of our great fishermen who were so badly treated by the Obama and Biden administrations and by the country of Canada.”
“That will mean millions more pounds of beautiful wild scallops a year on the kitchen table of Americans and more jobs in Norfolk, Virginia, Cape May, New Jersey, New Bedford, Massachusetts and essentially all parts of the East Coast,” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Mr. Obama blocked the fishermen from accessing the area in 2016 by invoking the Antiquities Act, a 1906 law written to protect Native American archaeological landmarks from looting. Mr. Trump lifted the ban in 2020, but Mr. Biden restored it during his first year in office.
The Fisheries Survival Fund, a nonprofit representing Atlantic sea scallop fishermen, had petitioned the Trump administration last year to allow scallop fishing across the northern edge of Georges Bank. The request was filed with the U.S. Office of Management and Budget and with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick after Mr. Trump signed an executive order mandating a review of regulations that impose “undue burdens” on businesses.
The U.S. exported 217 tons of scallops valued at roughly $7.62 million in 2025, ranking fifth among 33 global exporters and accounting for 3.3% of the world’s scallop exports, according to Selina Wamucii, an agrifood company that tracks scallop market data.
Before Mr. Biden restored the ban on scallop fishing in North Georges Bank, the U.S. exported roughly 479 tons of scallops valued at $14.7 million.
NOAA’s opening up of North Georges Bank follows a proclamation issued by Mr. Trump last month restoring commercial fishing in three Pacific Ocean marine national monuments, which also rolled back three previous presidents’ environmental protections.
That proclamation opened roughly half a million square miles in the Pacific to commercial fishermen. Mr. Trump said having more space to fish will both bolster the U.S. fishing industry and lower the cost of seafood for American consumers.
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