Am Samoa at Table for Tuna Treaty Talks

American Samoa will be at the table when the United States sits down  with fisheries ministers from Pacific Island Countries to try and hash out a new tuna treaty.

A new round of negotiations will be held next week in Auckland, New Zealand and leaving this weekend for Aotearoa are Attorney General Talauega Eleasalo Ale , and the governor’s adviser on fisheries, Vaamua Henry Sesepasara.

The current US South Pacific tuna treaty, which allows US purse seiners to fish in the exclusive economic zones of Pacific island countries, expires at the end of this year.

After the last talks in Fiji in May, the two sides came away far apart.

The United States has made overtures to pulling out of the treaty citing that the islands are asking for too much money with less fishing days for their vessels.

But the block of Pacific island nations which controls most of the Pacific‘s fishing grounds,  the PNA, says it’s a case of the superpower trying to get out of an international  agreement that it agreed to last year.

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