Since taking office just over three months ago, the Trump Administration has leaned hard into expanding policies to further support meat production and commercial fishing, with blatant disregard for animal welfare.

In March, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced that they were drafting a policy that would see an increase in the speed at which poultry and pig slaughterhouses operate.

Leaving aside the human worker risk factor – speed and knives/saws don’t mix well, it is concerning that the millions of animals that are processed in American slaughterhouses each year will suffer far more, with fewer protections, at high-speed, high-pressure processors.

At the same time, the USDA cut its farm animal welfare research team to just one single person.

Who will ensure that new animal welfare standards come from sound research now?

The current Administration doesn’t seem to care.

Nor did they in their first term.

In 2018, under Trump, the USDA withdrew animal welfare regulations that would have required higher production standards for livestock and poultry.

It seems the Administration believes that one doesn’t need to protect animals if it ultimately means businesses can profit more.

Sea-based animals will fare no better under this Administration.

In mid-April, Trump signed a proclamation reversing the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument (PRIMNM), which was first established by President Bush in 2009 and then expanded by President Obama, closing off over 400,000 square miles of the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone in the Pacific.

Trump reopened it, allowing U.S.-flagged vessels to fish commercially within 50 to 200 nautical miles of the PRIMNM’s boundaries.

The Administration argued, “The ban on commercial fishing within the PRIMNM did little to guard fish populations against overfishing, as tuna and other pelagic species are migratory in nature and do not permanently reside within the PRIMNM.

Really?

Because fish swim and migrate, there is no need to have protected zones?

The proclamation provides no limits or caps on commercial fishing activities.

Instead, it touts how the Tuna caught in the region will supply U.S. military rations and school lunch programs.

Perhaps, instead of rolling back animal welfare protections, the Administration could actually lean into their ‘Make America Healthy Again’ slogan and focus on reducing animal-based sources – especially in school lunch programs – in favor of healthy, sustainable plant-based alternatives.

Unlikely given the Administration’s propensity to go ‘in for the kill.’