On Wednesday, Donald Trump signed a proclamation reopening nearly half a million square miles of protected marine habitat in the Pacific to commercial fishing.
On hand for the Oval Office ceremony was Deadliest Catch captain Sig Hansen, who competed on Season 14 of NBC’s Trump-hosted reality show The Celebrity Apprentice.
During the White House photo opp, Hansen presented Trump with what he called a “crew hat” — presumably from the Northwestern — telling the president, “You’re one of us now.”
Hansen also called the president’s support for the fishing industry “phenomenal.”
Trump’s action rolls back protections put in place by Presidents Bush, Obama and Biden which placed some of the same waters under the National Marine Sanctuary Act, ostensibly to protect fish stocks for future generations of fishermen.
Today’s proclamation loosens restrictions on fishing in some of those same areas, specifically, Mau and Ho‘omalu Zones of the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, the Islands Unit of the Mariana Trench Marine National Monument, and the Rose Atoll Marine National Monument.
“I spent a couple of months with you on The Apprentice, and I saw your work ethic there,” said an effusive Hansen. “I can’t fathom how you do all this. How you get the time to do what you do. And representing us and helping the fishermen. It’s mind-boggling. Because I know you’ve go your hands full. And putting us on that pedestal and back our industry the way you have. It’s just phenomenal.”
“I’ve been fishing since I was 12 years old. I’ve never been tired until i spent some time with this man. It was very humbling to say the least.”
“I was a better captain after that,” said Hansen, “because i was very nice to my crew. I was very humbled when I was fired.”
“I’ve never been fired in my life until I spent a couple of months with this man” 🤣Sig Hansen, from the Deadliest Catch, also competed on Season 14 of The Celebrity Apprentice! pic.twitter.com/lhyEjaO0Vf
Trump’s actions related to protected waters in the Pacific have not been without their critics.
In 2025, when Trump issued a similar directive Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument to commercial fishing, Arlo Hemphill, Greenpeace USA project lead on ocean sanctuaries, said that the president’s action put “one of the most pristine ocean ecosystems on the planet at risk. Almost 90 percent of global marine fish stocks are fully exploited or overfished. The few places in the world ocean set aside as large, fully protected ocean sanctuaries serve as ‘fish banks’, allowing fish populations to recover, while protecting the habitats in which they thrive.”
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