By Mark J. Spalding, President, The Ocean Foundation
Watching the sunset from my deck seems unchanged from last year. The ocean beyond still rhythmically meets the shore, the tide rising and falling as it has for an eternity. Yet everything has shifted. After dedicating four decades to building international trust and partnerships across more than 130 nations, I find myself in uncharted waters—angry, betrayed, and watching as the tide of “America First” threatens to wash away not just institutional achievements but deeply personal connections that have defined my life’s journey.
As detailed in my accompanying article for SEVENSEAS, “Troubled Waters: The Ocean Foundation Navigates a Policy Storm,” our organization faces unprecedented challenges. But beyond the institutional impact lies a more personal story—one of the human connections formed across continents and cultures, now threatened by abrupt policy shifts and ideological retrenchment.
When I look back at my career, what stands out most vividly aren’t budget numbers or policy documents but faces—the Filipino marine protected area manager who proudly showed me the recovered coral reefs his community still protects; the Micronesian conservation leaders who evolved from students in our first workshop to respected regional experts; the Cuban scientists who collaborated across political divides to protect shared marine resources; the African researchers seeking to co-design scientific expeditions to benefit their nation’s sustainable development. These aren’t just professional associations but genuine friendships built on mutual respect and shared purpose. I’ve celebrated their children’s graduations, danced at their weddings, mourned family losses, and witnessed their communities transform through sustainable ocean management.
These relationships represent decades of patient trust-building. In port cities of Africa, island communities of the Pacific, and coastal villages of Latin America, we strove to avoid offering ready-made solutions but to begin with questions and a willingness to listen. Together with local partners, we helped build the capacity in those communities that remains long after any project ends—scientific skills, governance frameworks, and monitoring protocols adapted to local conditions. This legacy starkly contrasts the transaction-based foreign policy, where relationships are reduced to short-term economic showmanship rather than long-term mutual partnerships.
I do not want to lose these friendships. It is so hard because I cannot explain to colleagues in Indonesia, Zanzibar, or Mexico why America has abandoned its commitments so abruptly and caused such harm. I do not look forward to more emails like the one that arrived last week from a long-time partner in Fiji: “We understand these decisions come from your government, not from you, but after twenty years of collaboration, it feels like a betrayal of everything we’ve built together.”
As an internationalist at heart and by training, I feel most betrayed in our foreign relations. I do not want to be from a pariah nation. I do not want to align with dictatorships. I do not want to turn our backs on allies who have stood with us through war and peace. I do not want to cut off foreign aid to those in need, those who are sick with a disease where US aid makes a difference in life or death, and those who have suffered from conflict and other disasters. Aid that shares the abundance the US is blessed to have from its farmlands and its capacity. Aid that represents less than 1% of our national budget but generates immeasurable goodwill and stability.
I find myself reflecting on the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928—that often overlooked but pivotal moment that attempted to outlaw war for the sake of territorial gain and transform international relations. It represented an aspirational vision of a world order based on cooperation rather than conflict, on law rather than force. Today’s emerging international order stands in stark contrast—a world where relationships are transactional rather than values-based, where power is measured solely in military or economic terms rather than moral authority or cooperative capacity.
Just as our global shipping, food production, human settlement, and biodiversity have evolved in a period of relatively predictable weather patterns, so too have our governance structures. This new order threatens to reverse decades of progress toward international cooperation on shared oceanic challenges—fisheries management, maritime boundary agreements, conservation treaties, and waste management—even as those challenges are growing in a time of accelerating change. The complex mechanisms of ocean governance function only through mutual trust and commitment. These aren’t abstract bureaucratic structures but practical tools that prevent conflict, ensure food security, and maintain ecosystem health. When the world’s most powerful nation signals that such commitments are disposable, the entire architecture of global cooperation becomes unstable.
Beyond my professional life, I am unsettled by broader societal shifts. I cannot assuage my 88-year-old mother’s concerns about whether her Social Security check will arrive—and it is hard not to be a little angry about her relief when it does. Why should people be afraid that the government won’t honor its commitments? When did it become okay to make thousands of American citizens lose their jobs, many of whom are veterans, without due process, without proof, without honoring the protections under which they were hired? When did it become okay to insult and abuse the thousands of people who chose public service as educators, scientists, doctors, nurses, protectors of the disabled, and promoters of safety in the air, on the land, and at sea?
The constitutional questions are equally troubling to me as a lawyer and a citizen. Why should our government be allowed to break signed contracts with farmers, businesses, hospitals, state governments, and others? There is no plausible argument that the President or his executive appointee has the authority to refuse to spend funds already appropriated by Congress simply because he doesn’t like what Congress approved spending for.
The judiciary, a co-equal branch of government designed to check executive and congressional overreach, is also under sustained attack. Its rulings are sometimes ignored, and its authority is questioned. The rule of law—that sacred principle that distinguishes democracies from autocracies—seems increasingly fragile. This concentration of power in the executive branch represents the kind of governance our constitutional system was designed to prevent.
Yet, amid this storm, I find reasons for hope. I recall a conversation with an elder in Palau who had lived through the Japanese occupation, the American administration, and finally, independence. When I asked how his community had maintained its identity through such tumultuous changes, he pointed to the reef visible from shore. “The currents change, storms come and go, but the reef remains. Sometimes damaged, sometimes flourishing, but always there. People are the same—we bend, we adapt, but we do not break.”
While the pendulum of history swings back and forth, the arc of progress, while neither straight nor uninterrupted, continues its upward trajectory toward cooperation and resilience. I navigate these troubled waters guided by an unwavering belief in the resilience of nature and human connections. Like the ocean, I must absorb the shock of changing conditions, help my community adapt to new realities, and continue my vital work, albeit in different forms and channels.
In that spirit, I continue forward—angry and betrayed, yes, but also determined and, despite everything, grateful for those connections made, for the messages from our community, and for the opportunities these five decades have offered. As I can, I will continue to reach out to those in need, nurture friendships that transcend political boundaries, and contribute to a more sustainable relationship between humanity and the global ocean that sustains us all.
Photo Above: Coral restoration in Indonesia, Coral Guardian. Credit: Martin Colognoli / Ocean Image Bank