The Claim

Directed the Administration to expeditiously implement the most effective mechanisms, barriers, and other measures to prevent the migration and expansion of invasive carp in the Great Lakes Basin and the surrounding region.

The Claim, Unpacked

What is literally being asserted?

That the Trump administration issued a directive instructing federal agencies to implement effective measures to stop invasive carp from entering the Great Lakes Basin. This describes a presidential memorandum signed May 9, 2025.

What is being implied but not asserted?

The claim implies this directive represents a meaningful accomplishment — a “win” — comparable to the concrete energy and infrastructure achievements listed around it. The present-perfect framing (“Directed”) implies this action yielded or will yield expeditious results. It also implies the administration took ownership of and advanced the invasive carp prevention effort.

What is conspicuously absent?

The claim omits three devastating counterpoints. First, the Trump administration had itself paused federal funding for the primary prevention project — the Brandon Road Interbasin Project — in December 2024, triggering a construction delay before issuing this memo. Second, the $274 million in congressionally appropriated funding that the memo purports to unlock came from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law signed by President Biden; the administration spent months refusing to release money Congress had already appropriated. Third, as of the date of analysis (March 19, 2026), that funding remains frozen — the memo produced no actual release of funds, and three additional grants totaling $13.6 million for invasive carp removal are also paused pending Department of the Interior review. The claim does not mention that the project it endorses has roots going back 20 years through multiple administrations, or that invasive carp have not actually entered the Great Lakes.

Evidence Assessment

Established Facts

A presidential memorandum titled “Protecting the Great Lakes from Invasive Carp” was signed May 9, 2025, addressed to the Secretaries of the Interior, Commerce, and Army, and the EPA Administrator. The memo directs the designated officials to “determine and expeditiously implement the most effective mechanisms, barriers, and other measures to prevent the migration and expansion of invasive carp in the Great Lakes Basin and the surrounding region” — language essentially identical to the “365 wins” claim. The memo supports the Brandon Road Interbasin Project and sets a July 1, 2025 deadline for the State of Illinois to acquire necessary land, and a 30-day deadline for permits once ripe. Unlike an executive order, a presidential memorandum does not carry the force of law and is not published in the Federal Register as a binding rule. ¹

The Brandon Road Interbasin Project — the primary prevention infrastructure the memo endorses — was authorized in the Water Resources Development Act of 2020 under President Trump’s first term and funded under President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Congress appropriated $225.8 million in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (P.L. 117-58, signed November 2021) and an additional $47 million in 2023. The Army Corps of Engineers, Illinois, and Michigan signed a Project Partnership Agreement in July 2024, unlocking $274 million in federal funding (including $226 million from the IIJA) for Construction Increment 1 of 3. The total project cost is approximately $1.15 billion, with the federal government covering 90%. ²

The Trump administration paused the Brandon Road project through an administrative review in December 2024 — before the May 2025 memo was issued. In February 2025, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker postponed a land acquisition closing “based on the anticipated lack of federal funding for the project.” Pritzker demanded the Trump administration confirm it would provide the $225 million already appropriated by Congress before the state would proceed. The memo followed months of this standoff. ³

As of March 18, 2026 — more than ten months after the memorandum — federal funding for the Brandon Road project remains frozen. Illinois never received the $225 million despite the administration’s post-memo commitments. Three additional federal grants to Illinois totaling $13.6 million for invasive carp removal remain paused pending review by the U.S. Department of the Interior. A White House official, asked about the funding status in mid-March 2026, stated there was “nothing more to share” beyond Trump’s social media post and the 2025 memorandum. ⁴

The history of invasive carp prevention in the Great Lakes spans more than two decades across five administrations. The Army Corps of Engineers installed the first electric dispersal barrier in the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal in 2002; Barrier IIA was activated in 2009 and Barrier IIB in 2011. The Obama administration released a coordinated Asian Carp Control Strategy Framework in 2012. The Brandon Road project was formally authorized in the Water Resources Development Act of 2020 — passed in December of Trump’s first term. Construction of the first $15.5 million site preparation contract began in December 2024 and was completed in July 2025. Leading-edge deterrents are not expected to be operational until summer 2028 at the earliest; the full project will not be complete until approximately 2032. ⁵

Invasive carp have not entered the Great Lakes. As of March 2026, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has never documented live bighead, silver, or black carp in Lake Michigan or any of the Great Lakes. The Michigan Department of Natural Resources confirms no live specimens have been found in thousands of fish population assessments. The current invasive carp population in the Illinois River remains approximately 47 miles from Lake Michigan, held back by the existing electric barrier system installed under prior administrations. Trump’s own March 2026 public statements that Asian carp are “rapidly taking over Lake Michigan” were factually incorrect. ⁶

The item’s placement in the “UNLEASHING AMERICAN ENERGY DOMINANCE — AND COMMON SENSE” section is a categorical misfit. Invasive species management is an ecological and environmental issue handled under the Clean Water Act, the Nonindigenous Aquatic Nuisance Prevention and Control Act, and the Water Resources Development Act. It has no connection to energy production, extraction, or infrastructure. The surrounding items in this section concern oil drilling approvals, coal leasing, nuclear licensing, fuel economy rollbacks, and Paris Agreement withdrawal. Placing an invasive species directive in an “energy dominance” section appears to be an attempt to pad the energy accomplishments list with an unrelated action. ⁷

Strong Inferences

The memorandum functioned primarily as political cover for a funding freeze the administration had itself caused. The timeline is clear: the administration paused the Brandon Road project in December 2024, creating a crisis; Illinois refused to proceed without funding assurances; Trump issued a memo in May 2025 taking credit for supporting the project; and then the funding was never actually released. The memo restated in directive form what Congress had already decided and appropriated — without ordering the Army Corps to release the funds. Senator Dick Durbin, Representative Elissa Slotkin, and Governor Pritzker all publicly called on the administration to follow through on the promise the memo appeared to make, to no avail as of the date of analysis. ⁸

Listing this memorandum as a “win” inverts the factual sequence. The actual sequence: (1) Congress appropriated the money under Biden; (2) construction began in December 2024 under the Army Corps and existing authorizations; (3) the Trump administration paused the funds; (4) Trump issued a memo supporting the project and setting deadlines for Illinois; (5) the deadlines were not enforced; (6) the funds were not released. The administration’s net effect on the Brandon Road project through March 2026 has been to delay it, not to advance it. The “win” being claimed is for directing action on a project the administration had itself stalled. ⁹

What the Evidence Shows

The presidential memorandum of May 9, 2025 is real. The language cited in the “365 wins” claim reproduces almost verbatim the operative directive from the memo. On the narrowest reading — was this directive issued? — the answer is yes.

But the surrounding record fundamentally undermines the claim as a “win.” The Brandon Road Interbasin Project that the memo centers on was authorized in 2020 and funded with Biden-era Bipartisan Infrastructure Law money. The administration had paused that funding in December 2024, precipitating a months-long standoff with Illinois. The memo was the administration’s way of publicly backing a project it had itself stalled — and then the funding was never released. As of March 2026, the same congressionally appropriated funds remain frozen. The memo generated press coverage and political goodwill with Great Lakes-state governors, particularly Gretchen Whitmer, but produced no material advancement of the project.

The erroneous framing is compounded by the temporal mismatch: the “365 wins” list was published in January 2026 — after the memo, but also after it had become clear the memo had not produced the promised action. By that date, the funding freeze persisted, three additional grants were paused, and multiple senators and governors were publicly demanding the administration follow through. Treating the memo itself as the win, rather than any actual outcome, is a classic announcement-vs-outcome failure.

The section placement is its own quiet admission that this item doesn’t fit. Invasive carp prevention is an environmental and ecological issue, not an energy policy. It has nothing in common with the surrounding claims about oil drilling, coal leasing, or fuel economy rollbacks. Its insertion into the “energy dominance” section appears designed to inflate the count of energy-adjacent accomplishments.

The Bottom Line

The steel-man case: Trump did issue a presidential memorandum directing federal agencies to act on invasive carp prevention, and this is a legitimate policy concern affecting Great Lakes ecology and a $7 billion annual fishing and recreation economy. The memo’s public backing of the Brandon Road project may have helped prevent Illinois and the Army Corps from abandoning the project entirely during the funding uncertainty. In March 2026, Trump was still publicly engaging on the carp issue — meeting with Governor Whitmer on it — suggesting genuine political interest.

But the balance of evidence shows that the claim inverts the administration’s actual record. The administration paused existing congressionally appropriated funding for the primary prevention project, issued a memo taking credit for supporting that same project, and then did not release the funds. As of March 2026 — the date of this analysis, and the day after the Chicago Tribune ran the headline “Trump vows to fight invasive carp in Great Lakes, but Illinois federal funds remain frozen” — the funding standoff continues. The claim describes a directive as a win. The directive told agencies to act; the agencies have not received the resources to do so. The invasive carp are still 47 miles from Lake Michigan, not because of this memo, but because of electric barriers installed under George W. Bush and a multibillion-dollar infrastructure project conceived, authorized, and funded by previous administrations.

Footnotes

1. White House, “Protecting the Great Lakes from Invasive Carp” (Presidential Memorandum, May 9, 2025): https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/05/protecting-the-great-lakes-from-invasive-carp/. White House Fact Sheet: https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/05/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-protects-the-great-lakes-from-invasive-carp/. American Presidency Project archive: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/memorandum-protecting-the-great-lakes-from-invasive-carp. Akin Gump EO tracker (confirms memo form, not executive order): https://www.akingump.com/en/insights/blogs/trump-executive-order-tracker/protecting-the-great-lakes-from-invasive-carp. ↩

2. Invasive Carp Regional Coordinating Committee / FWS, “Army Corps, Illinois, and Michigan sign agreement to move Brandon Road Interbasin Project forward and unlock Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding for construction”: https://icrcc.fws.gov/news/army-corps-illinois-and-michigan-sign-agreement-move-brandon-road-interbasin-project-forward. Chicago Tribune, “Army Corps funds $226 million of Brandon Road project to keep invasive carp out of Lake Michigan” (January 2022): https://www.chicagotribune.com/2022/01/19/army-corps-funds-226-million-of-brandon-road-project-to-keep-invasive-carp-out-of-lake-michigan/. Council of State Governments, “Construction to begin on long-sought project to keep invasive carp out of the Great Lakes” (January 2025): https://www.csg.org/2025/01/09/construction-to-begin-on-long-sought-project-to-keep-invasive-carp-out-of-the-great-lakes/. Waterways Journal, “Carp Deterrent Project Advances At Brandon Road” (September 2026): https://www.waterwaysjournal.net/2025/09/26/carp-deterrent-project-advances-at-brandon-road/. ↩

3. Chicago Tribune, “Pritzker delays start of invasive carp project at Brandon Road in Joliet amid federal funding concerns” (February 10, 2025): https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/02/10/invasive-carp-brandon-road-lake-michigan/. Alliance for the Great Lakes, “Alliance responds to delay in invasive carp barrier project” (February 2025): https://greatlakes.org/2025/02/alliance-responds-to-delay-in-invasive-carp-barrier-project/. Chicago Tribune, “Feds say funding freed up for Great Lakes invasive carp project, though President Donald Trump and Gov. JB Pritzker still snipe at each other” (May 9, 2025): https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/05/09/trump-pritzker-carp-executive-order/. ↩

4. Chicago Tribune, “Trump vows to fight invasive carp in Great Lakes, but Illinois federal funds remain frozen” (March 18, 2026): https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/03/18/trump-vows-to-fight-invasive-carp-in-great-lakes-but-illinois-federal-funds-remain-frozen/. Chicago Sun-Times (March 13, 2026): https://chicago.suntimes.com/politics/2026/03/13/jb-pritzker-dick-durbin-invasive-asian-carp-wants-great-lakes-donald-trump-brandon-road-interbasin-project. WPR, “Trump wants to ‘save’ Great Lakes from invasive carp as administration stalls funding for it”: https://www.wpr.org/news/trump-wants-to-save-great-lakes-from-invasive-carp-as-administration-stalls-funding. Urban Milwaukee (March 16, 2026): https://urbanmilwaukee.com/2026/03/16/trump-wants-to-save-great-lakes-from-invasive-carp-but-halts-funds/. ↩

5. Alliance for the Great Lakes, “Construction to Begin on Brandon Road Invasive Carp Barrier” (December 2024): https://greatlakes.org/2024/12/construction-to-begin-on-brandon-road-invasive-carp-barrier/. Army Corps of Engineers Rock Island District, Brandon Road Interbasin Project page: https://www.mvr.usace.army.mil/about/offices/programs-and-project-management/district-projects/projects/article/1165388/brandon-road-interbasin-project/. Obama White House, “Obama Administration Releases 2012 Asian Carp Control Strategy Framework” (February 23, 2012): https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2012/02/23/obama-administration-releases-2012-asian-carp-control-strategy-framework. Chicago Tribune, “Illinois closes on land in ‘another positive step’ for Brandon Road project construction to stop invasive carp” (October 29, 2025): https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/29/illinois-closes-on-land-in-another-positive-step-for-brandon-road-project-construction-to-stop-invasive-carp/. ↩

6. WOOD TV, “Trump erroneously claims invasive carp are ‘taking over’ Lake Michigan”: https://www.woodtv.com/news/michigan/trump-erroneously-claims-invasive-carp-are-taking-over-lake-michigan/. Michigan DNR statement: no live bighead, silver, or black carp found in Great Lakes or Michigan rivers in thousands of fish population assessments. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service testimony on Asian carp in the Great Lakes: https://www.fws.gov/testimony/asian-carp-great-lakes-and-mississippi-river-systems. ↩

7. Source catalog item 333 section header: “UNLEASHING AMERICAN ENERGY DOMINANCE — AND COMMON SENSE.” Comparison of surrounding items 325-340 (oil drilling approvals, coal leasing, nuclear licensing, fuel economy rollbacks, Paris Agreement withdrawal). Nonindigenous Aquatic Nuisance Prevention and Control Act (P.L. 101-646, 1990) — the statutory framework for invasive species management in navigable waterways, with no connection to energy production statutes. ↩

8. Senator Dick Durbin press release, “Durbin Calls On President Trump To Follow Through On Promise To Prevent Invasive Carp From Entering Great Lakes”: https://www.durbin.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/durbin-calls-on-president-trump-to-follow-through-on-promise-to-prevent-invasive-carp-from-entering-great-lakes. Senators Durbin, Duckworth, Peters, Slotkin, “Durbin, Duckworth, Peters, Slotkin Push OMB To Resume Brandon Road Project”: https://www.durbin.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/durbin-duckworth-peters-slotkin-push-omb-to-resume-brandon-road-project. Senator Slotkin, “Slotkin Urges Trump Administration to Prioritize Brandon Road Project and Stop Invasive Asian Carp” (January 20, 2026): https://www.slotkin.senate.gov/2026/01/20/slotkin-urges-trump-administration-to-prioritize-brandon-road-project-and-stop-invasive-carp/. Governor Pritzker press release, “President Trump Betrays the Great Lakes (Again)”: https://gov-pritzker-newsroom.prezly.com/president-trump-betrays-the-great-lakes-again. ↩

9. Detroit News, “Trump says he won’t fund invasive carp barrier unless Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker ‘asks.’ But the money has already been set aside” (August 27, 2025): https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/environment/2025/08/27/invasive-carp-barrier-illinois-trump/85857421007/. WTTW Chicago, “Invasive Carp Barrier Is Back in Business, With Funding Guarantee From Trump” (May 23, 2025): https://news.wttw.com/2025/05/23/invasive-carp-barrier-back-business-funding-guarantee-trump. SeafoodSource, “Trump directs federal government to prioritize stopping invasive Asian carp from reaching Great Lakes”: https://www.seafoodsource.com/news/environment-sustainability/trump-directs-federal-government-to-prioritize-stopping-invasive-asian-carp-from-reaching-great-lakes. ↩