Long-wrought WTO agreement aimed at reducing overfishing takes effect

GENEVA (AP) — A World Trade Organization agreement aimed at reducing overfishing took effect Monday, requiring countries to reduce subsidies doled out to fishing fleets and aiming to ensure sustainability of wildlife in the world's seas and oceans.

Following a string of national approvals more than three years after its adoption, the WTO Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies is designed to help limit the depletion of fish stocks caused by excessive fishing.

The Geneva-based trade body touts the deal as its first focusing on the environment, and the first broad and binding multilateral agreement on ocean sustainability.

The deal, championed by WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, formally took effect on Monday after four more countries — Brazil, Kenya, Tonga and Vietnam — adopted it.

The approvals mean 112 countries are on board, clearing by one country the requirement that at least two-thirds of WTO's 166 members give formal acceptance.

China, the United States, and the European Union's 27-member states are among those that have signed on, while India and Indonesia have been among the holdouts.

The Pew Charitable Trust, an advocacy group, say the agreement will require countries to limit some of the $22 billion in subsidies worldwide that encourage practices by fleets that deplete fish stocks, and will create a “fish fund" that can help developing countries implement it.

Only part of the agreement — focusing on subsidies for illegal fishing and overfished stocks — has taken effect. A second part, which concentrates on subsidies that produce overcapacity in the large-scale fishing industry, such as for building ships, has not been finalized.

The economic reason that the second part is important is because the more that the world's fleets have ships to fish, the lower those ships will cost — making it cheaper and more appealing to fish on a large scale and thus further threaten global fish stocks.

Experts hope the first approval will build momentum for the second part.

Oceana, a top advocacy group devoted to ocean conservation, says that fish populations were already declining because of overfishing more than a generation ago — and today the situation is “even more dire” with some 38% of global stocks overfished.

“Without fish, it’s game over for the hundreds of millions of people who depend on the ocean,” said Rashid Sumaila, an Oceana board member and head of the Fisheries Economics Research Unit at the University of British Columbia.

He said the first phase of the deal “won’t stop the billions in subsidies that fuel overfishing and overcapacity," adding: "But it does create a foundation that must be built on further.”

FILE - A worker checks the quality of fish during the morning seafood auction in Ostend, Belgium, Friday, Feb. 11, 2022. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo, File)

FILE - Fresh fish are packed in ice as they await purchase at a morning market in Nice, southern France, Friday, Feb. 11, 2022. (AP Photo/Daniel Cole, File)

FILE - China's Long Fa fishing vessel is followed by flocks of seabirds in the Southern Ocean off the coast of the South Orkney Islands, north of the Antarctic Peninsula, on March 10, 2023. (AP Photo/David Keyton, File)

FILE - Fisherman Kassim Abdalla Zingizi holds a yellowfin tuna after a catch in Vanga, Kenya, on June 14, 2022. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga, File)

NEW YORK (AP) — Thursday was the final day to select an Affordable Care Act health insurance plan across much of the country, as the expiration of federal subsidies drives up health costs and lawmakers remain locked in a debate over how to address the issue.

That's when the open enrollment window ends in most states for plans that start in February. About 10 states that run their own marketplaces have later deadlines, or have extended them to the end of the month to give their residents more time.

The date is a crucial one for millions of small business owners, gig workers, farmers, ranchers and others who don't get their health insurance from a job and therefore rely on marketplace plans. A record 24 million Americans purchased Affordable Care Act health plans last year.

But this year, their decisions over health coverage have been more difficult than usual as clarity over how much it will cost is hard to come by. And so far, enrollment is lagging behind last year's numbers — with about 22.8 million Americans having signed up so far, according to federal data.

Last year, for months, it was unclear whether Congress would allow for the end-of-year expiration of COVID-era expanded subsidies that had offset costs for more than 90% of enrollees. Democrats forced a record-long government shutdown over the issue, but still couldn't get a deal done. So the subsidies expired Jan. 1, leaving the average subsidized enrollee with more than double the monthly premium costs for 2026, according to an analysis from the health care nonprofit KFF.

Still, the question of whether Congress would resurrect the tax credits loomed over Washington. Several enrollees told The Associated Press they have either delayed signing up for coverage or signed up with a plan to cancel as they anxiously watch what's happening on Capitol Hill.

Last week, the House passed a three-year extension of the subsidies after 17 Republicans joined with Democrats against the wishes of Republican leaders. But the Senate rejected a similar bill last year.

Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, has been leading a bipartisan group of 12 senators trying to devise a compromise and said this week that he expects to have a proposal by the end of the month. The contours of the senators’ bipartisan plan involves a two-year deal that would extend the enhanced subsidies while adding new limits on who can receive them. The proposal would also create the option, in the second year, of a new health savings account that President Donald Trump and Republicans prefer.

Under the deal being discussed, the ACA open enrollment period would be extended to March 1 of this year to allow people more time to figure out their coverage plans after the disruption.

Still, Republicans and Democrats say they have not completed the plan, and the two sides have yet to agree if there should be new limits on whether states can use separate funds for abortion coverage.

President Donald Trump on Thursday announced outlines of a plan he wants Congress to consider that would. It would, among other things, redirect ACA subsidies into health savings accounts that go directly to consumers. Democrats have largely rebuffed this idea as inadequate for offsetting health costs for most people.

Associated Press writers Mary Clare Jalonick and Lisa Mascaro contributed from Washington.

FILE - Pages from the U.S. Affordable Care Act health insurance website healthcare.gov are seen on a computer screen in New York, Aug. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Patrick Sison, File)