Trump declares National Scallops Day while ripping Obama, Biden

Administration Trump declares National Scallops Day while ripping Obama, Biden Comments: by Max Rego - 07/02/26 3:35 PM ET Comments: Link copied by Max Rego - 07/02/26 3:35 PM ET Comments: Link copied

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President Trump declared Thursday as “National Scallops Day” in touting his administration opening up New England waters for scallop fishing, taking a shot at former President Obama and former President Biden in the process.

“Today I am declaring a National Scallops Day to celebrate an action taken by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that will open up the Northern Edge of Georges Bank to Scallops Fishing, fulfilling the dream to our Great Fishermen who were so badly treated by the Obama and Biden Administrations, and by the Country of Canada,” the president wrote on Truth Social.

White House trade and manufacturing adviser Peter Navarro said Thursday the administration is lowering regulatory burdens on fisheries, including by opening up the northern edge of Georges Bank to scallop fishing, according to Reuters.

Georges Bank is a shallow submarine plateau off the coast of New England, and is larger than the entire state of Massachusetts, according to NOAA’s Integrated Ecosystem Assessment (IEA) program. The plateau separates the Gulf of Maine from the Atlantic Ocean.

Due to high primary productivity stemming from similar chlorophyll levels to near-shore regions of the continental shelf, Georges Bank has “an extensive food web including high levels of fish production that have sustained commercial fisheries since the 16th century,” the IEA notes.

Under NOAA restrictions, the dedicated habitat research area of Georges Bank is closed year-round to gear in contact with the ocean bottom and towed from a fishing vessel. The Hill has reached out to the administration to clarify whether it is scrapping these regulations.

Trump said Thursday the move “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.”

He added, “This is in addition to freeing up a massive area off the East Coast for our Great Lobster Fishermen, and others (An Environmental Monument declared by Barack Hussein Obama and Sleepy Joe Biden, that I terminated!), and a half a million square miles of the beautiful Pacific Ocean, where every country was allowed to fish except for our Great American Fishermen!”

The president went on to say he has “freed” fishermen from “ridiculous” environmental regulations and urged them to vote for Republicans in the November midterms.

While scallop fishing has declined in recent years, commercial landings of Atlantic sea scallop hit 21.2 million pounds and were valued at $332 million in 2024, according to NOAA Fisheries. The agency noted that scallop vessels from Massachusetts, Virginia and New Jersey account for the majority of the U.S. harvest of the mollusks.