That with the straight will officially open as soon as we sign, which could be soon, very soon, maybe over the weekend in Europe. I won't be able to be there, but JD will be there, the vice president, and some of the people. Steve Witkoff did a great job, Jared. So we'll take some questions, but right now we're here to talk about fishermen and fisherwomen. Okay. We have great people, and I guess I'm a little prejudiced because they all voted for me. Would you say I got 100% or just
I think so. I think if I didn't have a surprise, it would be a big surprise. So, it's my honor to be taking this action to lower seafood costs and generate millions and millions of dollars in new business for our great, really great fishermen, great people, by restoring commercial access to three areas of the western Pacific Ocean. It's a large amount of space we're talking about that they were restricted. Other countries would use it, but our country couldn't use it at all. It's stupid. I want to thank Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy, and Congresswoman Kimberly King Hines for joining us today. We appreciate it all very much. Thank you very much. Thanks as well to Captain Sig Hansen, a superstar. He and Tom Cruz are the two biggest people in entertainment. Thank you very much. Great, great job. And Pacific Seafood CEO Frank Dulcich and his sons Dominic and Charles and many more dedicated fishermen and seafood industry leaders. We have some great leaders here, and your product is amazing. It's been going along for a long time, right? Seafood.
It's amazing. Under the Obama-Biden administration's radical environmentalists, they drastically restricted access for fishermen and coastal communities. Hundreds of thousands of square miles of ocean were cut off for them. They can't fish. Other people could fish. They couldn't. These people weren't allowed to fish. Can you imagine that? Did you ever think that was going to happen as you grew up, probably as the sons and daughters of fishermen, right? That someday they were going to take away the right for you to go fishing in the Pacific Ocean.
What a bunch of dopes. Those decisions closed off vast resources and really the richest fishing grounds, they say, anywhere in the world, destroyed livelihoods and made the United States more dependent on foreign products. And I did a similar thing for Maine. Maine is very much in the subject because I have a pig running for Senate. He's a pig and he's not a senator. He's a joke. He's a con man. But so it's in the... And you know, I won half of Maine. I won the one by a lot. Fishermen, actually, come to think of it, fishermen and the lumberjacks. The people that go out there and work. I want them. So I love Maine. But it's amazing. They had a 500 mile by 500 mile massive amount of the Atlantic Ocean. You weren't allowed to fish, but Canada was. Japan was. They all came in and fished, but our people weren't allowed to fish there. That was put in by Barack Hussein Obama. Have you heard of him? Barack Hussein Obama and Sleepy Joe Biden. And it's a shame. I made a shame, but I did it a little while ago and opened it up to them twice. I've done it now, Peter. Right.
Peter Navarro, the great Peter Navarro. And I did it twice. I did it then, and then they had a rigged election and I wasn't here. Totally rigged election, just like what was happening in California. You see what they got the kid out and then they were doing the same thing to Steve Hilton. Then I started bringing it. They said, 'Look, it's going to take two more weeks.' It was a week and he was heading south. And I started saying, 'It's a rigged election.' And then they said it was going to take two weeks, one week, two weeks. And all of a sudden, he was approved. You know why? Because the heat was on. He couldn't get away with it. If I didn't do it, I guarantee he wouldn't be the nominee. It's a rigged election in our country, and we have to get, by the way, the Save America Act has to get passed by the Senate. The House has passed it three times. But with today's action, we're officially reopening nearly half a million square miles of water around the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, Northern Mariana Islands, and American Samoa. I mean, we'll ask you in a second, but why the hell did they close it? Why? Not enough fish? What's going on? They closed it. Peter, do you have any reasons why they closed it?
Obama, Barack Hussein Obama, environmental activists tried to shut it down. But you're right, sir. It's crazy. They let all... ruined the big industry.
The foreign boats come in. It's crazy.
And they leave our captains out. It's crazy. It's bad for fish prices, too.
But we're making up for it, right?
And this will support millions of dollars in annual harvest of big tuna, swordfish, reef fish, and many other types of fish. It will protect small local fisheries and coastal communities that depend on their livelihoods. I mean, they are very dependent on this. And it will increase domestic seafood production to help lower costs for American communities. And you're talking about millions, tens of millions of dollars of income. We have so much in these areas. I mean, they just say, 'Oh, let's just close them.' The amazing thing is that other countries have no restriction. You know, you can go and do whatever you want. It's just crazy. America's fishermen have never had a better ally in the White House than Donald Trump. I shouldn't say that because I don't want to brag, but
Based on the vote of getting almost every vote ever.
True. But you have never had, and again in Maine I opened it up. You know who was fishing there? Canada. Canada. Japan was fishing there. Maine lobster. You couldn't get a Maine lobster. You had to go to Japan to get a Maine lobster. You believe that? You had to go to Canada to get a Maine lobster. They were fishing there. Not only that, you had to go a day and a half in a boat and they had you at three knots. That means like essentially a little bit different than 3 miles an hour, but it means slow. Three knots until you got outside of this 500 mile area because they didn't want you to disturb the fish that you weren't allowed to fish for. But think of it, these people are crazy. And the new thing they had was you had to have an electric boat. Even though they didn't work and even though once you got out there you had a problem because you couldn't get back because they didn't charge long enough. These are problems that were mentioned to them and they said we don't care. You have to have an electric boat. And the other problem was the electric battery is much heavier, as you know. So the boat has a tendency to sink. And they were forced, you know, by 2030 or so, you were forced to have an electric boat. I don't think you were too happy with that, right?
Anyway, but this is going to support millions and millions of people. America's fishermen are special people, and it's fishermen and fisherwomen. So tell me, how do they define that? Because in most industries like you have policemen, policewomen, do you call them fishermen and fisherwomen? I haven't heard of that one before. They put it. Are we... How are the women? Do they want to be designated as fisherwomen? Does anybody want to answer that question?
We'll take fish.
Yes.
Fishermen, fisherwomen.
If you want to be politically correct, sometimes they use the term fisher, but
Yeah, I like fisherman or fisherwoman myself.
So, President Trump, I Googled that because I was at the same dilemma you did, trying to figure out to be politically correct.
So, the Google answer said that most women attribute to fishermen because they feel like they're strong individuals and they can do the work of a man.
Well, be careful. That might be the end of your career. My administration's already rolled back burdensome regulations to increase gear flexibility. You know what that means, right? Do you know what that means? I heard they made you buy gear that you didn't want.
And that didn't work. Other than that, it was quite good. Expedite... the guy made contributions to by whoever owns the company that made the bad gear. Expedite fishing start dates and significantly raise catch limits based on the best available science. You know about that? That's unbelievable. We expanded access to key fishing grounds in the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans, including vast areas off the coast of New England. I mentioned 500 miles by 500 miles. That's a lot. That's a lot of fish. That's a lot of lobster that was being sold by Japan. I will tell you, foreign countries are very happy because they ended up taking over the Maine lobster business. Maine lobster business live from Japan, right? But we gave it back to them. These actions have unlocked billions of dollars in economic value and protected thousands and thousands of jobs from great people that voted for Trump. And they voted for me because of common sense. That's all it is. Because anybody can see this stuff is crazy. This is one industry, but other industries likewise. And right now we have $18 trillion being invested in our country. And under the last administration it was less than one. And 18, this is 18 trillion by the way, in less than a year. It was four years less than one. Right, Howard?
By restoring fishing access to these waters in the Western Pacific, we're reclaiming our maritime heritage, empowering American fishermen, and putting American consumers first with lower prices. He's going to have more fish, lower prices. So now let's hear from first Secretary Lutnick and then Secretary Burgum, followed by Governor Dunleavy and Frank Dulcich and Captain Sig Hansen, and then we'll take some questions and maybe you want to hear a little bit about some other subjects. But to me it's really important. I'm going to sign this now so that we get it done. No auto pen. I don't want an auto pen. Can you believe 94% signed by an auto pen? Can you believe that? I think it's higher than 94%. The only one that was definitely signed by him that we know of. You know what it was? It was his son. Who was son? His son. That was the only one. You could tell. You know why? Because his signature was horrible. She's a real beauty of that one. Okay. Do we want to do some questions?
Mr. President.
Mr. President.
Would you like to speak?
So, this action... 500,000 square miles were closed to American fishermen. You couldn't go and fish. 500,000 square miles. I mean, just think of how big that is. And if you had an American flag, you weren't allowed there. But of course, everybody else went. So, they went in our waters. These are our waters, right? And so, what did that result in? That resulted in us instead of having seafood exports because we have great fishing opportunity, we were an importer. We became an importer of seafood. How crazy is that? So the president is finally changing that. This is a massive win for our fishermen, a massive win for our waterfront communities who process it. All these processors, and in the end we are going to eat fish caught by us. What a shock. Eating fish caught by us in our waters. So this is just common sense, smart. We already have the best conservation rules in the world. And this was one on top of another on top of another. So, thank God from the fisherman's perspective. And I get these calls all the time that President Donald Trump is in this office because he's finally letting our great fishermen and fisherwomen get out there and catch fish and stop importing fish. Let's eat fish caught by Americans.
Echoing that, with President Trump's leadership, this is another promise made, promise kept by President Trump that he was going to roll back these job-killing, community-killing, industry-killing... He's done that last year with executive orders, doing it today with his proclamation. So, I want to say thank you to President Trump. I want to say thank you to my great friend, Secretary Lutnick in Commerce. We have dual responsibilities across commerce and interior related to fish. And of course with our partners in the Pacific, because American Samoa, Guam, the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands, we've got the congresswoman here from Northern Mariana Islands. These are all American citizens. As Howard said, this is US territorial waters and they were closed to us and open to others. And that makes no sense. We've reversed that around. And so again, as you see around us, the jobs that are created in this industry are often second, third, fourth, and fifth generation family businesses. And these folks not only risk their lives, they risk their own personal capital to help feed America. They're the farmers of the sea. Just like President Trump's behind our farmers and ranchers, he's behind our fishermen. He's making sure that America is great. This brings back healthy food for our schools, our military, all the things that we're working on with Secretary Kennedy and with Pete Hegseth. So this is a win-win-win across the board. Again, thank you, President Trump. Thank you, Howard. Great day for America.
Thank you, Mr. President. This is another example of America First, to be honest with you. Alaska provides 60% of the country's seafood. We are the state with halibut, salmon, king crab, you name it, it comes from Alaska. Fishing in Alaska is one of the oldest industries in that entire state. It employs thousands of individuals. Everyone has had fish from Alaska. We know that. But this is an example again of putting America's first, America first, workers first, and really this country first. And so, on behalf of Alaska, on behalf of all fishermen and women, I want to thank you for what you're doing for this country, for the state of Alaska as well.
Governor, is this shut down? I mean, it's just so hard to believe. So this was trauma for your industry, which is a big industry.
Well, your deregulation is what really helps Alaska. It helps the fishermen. The country doesn't need more regulation. We need less regulation, and that includes for this industry as well. And so from that perspective, and it's across the board. We could talk about oil and gas and so forth, but this is about fish. But your deregulation approach is really what we need. We don't need more cost, and as you said, we probably don't need electric boats either. We need to focus on getting seafood to Americans, putting people to work, and this is exactly what this does. So, I just want to thank you.
Thanks. Good job, Mr. President. Mr. President, we hear from a couple fish.
We're third generation. These two are some of our kids as well for Pacific Seafood. Immigrated. My grandfather immigrated into this country and started his first fish market in 1941. From there, we now are one of the largest family vertically integrated seafood companies in North America. It was the American dream, and I'm honored to be...
Portland, Oregon, and now Arizona.
Probably more people than you think are Republicans, conservatives.
If we could count the votes properly.
But where we are is this: the proclamation today and the executive order last year prior to this is really going to help us. We have 3,000 families that work with us and 715 fishing families in the lower 48 in Oregon, Washington, California, and Alaska that depend on what we catch, what we process, and what we grow and sell is the healthiest protein on the planet. And you're giving us access to these family wage jobs in these coastal communities where we're usually the number one or number two employer in those cities and counties and coastal communities we're in. So I just wanted to say thank you on behalf of that 3,000 employees and 715 fishermen. Thank you, Mr. President, secretaries. Thank you and everybody that supports this industry.
So did you ever see this happening when they destroyed your whole life and your family and your business, everything else? Did you ever think that somebody would come along and say,
Let me just be really clear. There's never been a president to do this.
Thank you very much. That's very nice.
I just want to say, Mr. President, that my father always said, 'Always give credit where credit is due.' And I'm here representing the working man, the fisherman. I am one myself, as you know. And I spent a couple of months with you on The Apprentice and I saw your work ethic there. And I got to tell you, I understand that I can't fathom how you can do all this and how you can get the time to do what you do and representing us and helping the fishermen the way you have done it. It's just mind-boggling to me because I know you got your hands full, but putting us on that pedestal and backing up our industry the way you have, it's just phenomenal. And I got to say, I've been fishing since I was 12 years old. I've never been fired in my life until I spent a couple of months with this man. And it was very humbling, to say the least.
He did a great job. And I tell you what, you know, when I think about it, I was a better captain after that because I was very nice to my crew. I was very humbled when I was fired. And anyway, I just want to say as for you, this is a crew member's cap. You can take that. And you're one of us now. Thank you.
Thank you very much.
We've done more for this nation in the fish business. We're farmers of the sea. We produce this great healthy protein. I'm from North Carolina, but we support you 100%. You've done more for this nation in the seafood space than any president before you in my lifetime. Thank you very much.
Yeah. I'm Eric from Hawaii. United States fisheries are the best managed in the world, and this action is really about balancing the interests in the US exclusive economic zone. You can have both ocean protection under our laws as well as sustainable fishing. And that's what this is about. And I think, Mr. President, you are the only president who has really stepped up in terms of supporting fishermen like you're doing. No other president we've seen through the administration that's helping us. And there's a lot more work to do because there's a tremendous seafood deficit in trade. Imports are undercutting us left and right. But seafood is healthy.
They're taking them right out of your waters.
Yeah. And seafood is a healthy place.
Taking it from your waters and selling it into the United States. That's right. The whole thing is just crazy.
Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Yeah, please.
First of all, thank you, Mr. President, to you and your family for the sacrifice and the commitment to the country.
I'm in the sea scallop business. I don't know who likes sea scallops, but New Bedford, Massachusetts is a port that is recognized as the highest grossing revenue port in the United States. I don't know who knows where New Bedford is, but sea scallops, there's roughly 300 vessels, so 300 full-time vessels. They range from 85 feet to 100 feet. Six white came from New Bedford. And you talked earlier about some examples of stupidity or whatever. We have vessels that can cost anywhere between $3 to $5 million. And those vessels only work for 35 days a year. They sit the rest of the time at the dock. So, we need certain things that could help us. And I know that because of your executive order, it's a game changer. That order is a game changer for us. And one more example, there's an area that, like Frank mentioned on the Pacific side, but there's an area off Georges Bank that's 248 square miles.
Restricted. It's the largest... It's been closed since 1995. And here we are, 29 years later. We can't even get it. It's the best scallop ground in the United States.
Take a look at it. Yes, sir. I spoke with a gentleman before and we're going to fix it. Let's take a look at it.
But how... you talked about stupidity. How crazy is that? We haven't been able to get in there for 30 years and it's been environmentalists.
Do other people get in?
There's lobster guys in there. There's... Yeah, they cut it. Well, mostly the United States, but it's the best scallop ground that we have in the United States.
How do they get in if it's restricted?
Well, they can get in. We can't. They won't allow scallop fishing in there.
So, it's prohibited from us.
But there's... I mean, just think of a boat that we have that sits. And we've asked... we're working, and I just explained it to Secretary Lutnick about... we're right now pretty close to where we could easily take a permit and put another permit on it, but why should we let these boats sit at the dock for 330 days?
Yeah, it's crazy. So, we'll look at that. Thank you so much and we appreciate it.
Thank you.
So, I'm a federal adviser on the Sea Scallop Plan, President Trump, and spent a lot of time helping advise the council how to manage that fishery. It's the best managed fishery in the world, bar none, of any fishery we have. But it's ludicrous to allow those scallops... they live about 8 to 10 years, and we've already gone through three different cycles of those scallops maturing and dying that were not harvested. There's a way for us to do that. And your director... it's a positive as opposed to a negative.
It needs to be over generations.
So a scallop will die of old age.
But it needs to... How do they taste when they're dead?
