CAMBRIDGE DAY • June 20, 2020
Amid a global pandemic, tensions over race relations and a struggling economy, President Donald Trump opts instead to dismantle environmental protections created during Barack Obama’s presidency on almost 5,000 square miles of ocean floor off the East Coast. Trump claims allowing commercial fishing in the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument will jump-start the Maine fishing industry. The real issues the Maine fishing industry faces have to do with Chinese tariffs imposed as a result of Trump’s trade war and questions of how to protect endangered whale species without decreasing lobster yields. Trump had little to say on either point, instead opting for an ultimately useless rollback of important environmental regulations. ~ Annabel Xu, Somerville, Mass