The new federal administration is bringing both hope and fear to those who focus on the waters of the western Pacific Ocean.
On Jan. 16, about a week before President Donald Trump took office, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration under former President Joe Biden announced that it had designated the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument as a national sanctuary.
NOAA made the designation with the publication of a final rule. If all goes according to plan, the 582,000-square-mile sanctuary designation, which would cover the federal waters around the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, will take effect sometime in March after a 45-day period in Congress.
That would be a big win for proponents of ocean conservation in the area.
“It's undergoing a process where it could become a national marine sanctuary, which would give it more protections, and the president wouldn't be able to take any actions because a marine sanctuary is an act of Congress,” said William Ailā Jr., the former chair of the monument’s Reserve Advisory Council.
A sanctuary designation would provide a legal framework to protect those waters from fishing, industrial activities and other activities that could harm the environment or the species that live there.
But Trump has targeted marine monuments in the past, and has dismissed conservation measures in favor of extracting resources.
During his first term, he ordered a review of several monuments, including Papahānaumokuākea. Trump had called into question the federal Antiquities Act, which allows the federal government to protect land or water for conservation purposes.
Ailā said the president could slow-walk the sanctuary process this time around.
Though a bigger concern for him is that the president could challenge marine monuments in the Supreme Court. Chief Justice John Roberts has shown interest in shrinking them by inviting challenges to the Antiquities Act.
“He sort of was hinting that somebody should bring a case to him, and now we have a Supreme Court that seems to be more favorable to deregulation and more business-supportive. That's the concern, that President Trump might try it,” Ailā said.
Optimism among fishing industry leaders
Meanwhile, local leaders in the fishing industry are more optimistic about Trump in office.
The Western Pacific Fishery Management Council, or WESPAC, has often butted heads with the federal government over efforts to increase protections in the Pacific Ocean.
The council has opposed the expansion of monuments and the designation of sanctuaries because, it argues, they weaken the U.S. fishing industry — an important part of the social, cultural and economic makeup of many Pacific island communities.
“ We have several issues here that have not been resolved or have not been handled well in the past. We have to compete because of the area closures that we have,” said Kitty Simonds, WESPAC’s longtime executive director.
“One thing is that the area that our longliners have to fish in is, frankly, a very small area.”
Another, and even bigger, monument in the Pacific Ocean is undergoing a sanctuary process.

The Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument, formerly known as the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument, is 770,000 square miles and covers Baker, Howland and Jarvis islands; Johnston, Wake and Palmyra atolls; and Kingman Reef.
“That will affect the purse seine fishery in American Samoa, and that is the driver of their economy. Their whole economy is based on delivering skipjack and albacore to canneries,” Simonds said.
Trump’s tariffs on imports from China are also underway, and some say those could help the local fishing industry.
The recent 10% tariff on Chinese goods could affect the price of imported fish. The country is one of several that exports fish to Hawaiʻi and can sell it at low prices, undercutting local fishers.
“Other countries subsidize the heck out of their fisheries and seafood production, and so their costs of production are much lower than what we have to produce our seafood with,” said Eric Kingma, the executive director of the Hawaiʻi Longline Association, before the tariff went into effect.
Imported fish, especially ahi, is one of the top concerns for Kingma and Hawaiʻi’s commercial longline fishing industry.
Kingma said it’s too early to see the local impact of that new tariff.
Overall uncertainty
Both the hopes and fears of the Trump administration are tempered by uncertainty.
Conservation advocates hope the administration’s packed agenda keeps monuments and sanctuaries in the Pacific Ocean under the radar.
In the short term, that would allow the Papahānaumokuākea sanctuary process to get through its 45-day review period in Congress.
“At least at this point in time, it doesn't appear that it's very high on his agenda, so we're going to have to take a wait-and-see approach. But he's doing some radical things. He's threatened some radical things,” said Rick Gaffney, the former vice-chair of the Papahānaumokuākea RAC.
Ailā said conservation groups are ready to take legal action if necessary.
For fishing, Kingma said it’s not entirely clear if the administration’s moves would impact fishers, either.
“ I haven't heard a lot about any potential for seafood tariffs from the get-go, so if it happens, it happens. We're not holding our breath, but we would definitely be supportive of leveling the playing field,” he said.