COMMISSIONERS URGE PRESIDENT TO BAR CHINESE SEAFOOD LINKED TO FORCED LABOR AND ILLEGAL FISHING

WASHINGTON—U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan (R-AK) and U.S. Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ), Chair and Cochair, respectively, of the bipartisan Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC), today released a letter urging the President to issue an Executive Order prohibiting seafood harvested by Chinese-linked vessels or processed in China from entering the United States. U.S. Representatives Dale Strong (R-AL) and Tom Suozzi (D-NY), both CECC Commissioners, joined the Chairs in sending the bipartisan letter.

“Chinese seafood is too often produced through forced labor and enters our market at prices honest American fishermen cannot match,” the lawmakers wrote. “That is not competition. It is abuse shipped into the United States.”

The lawmakers commended the President’s April 2025 executive order to restore American seafood competitiveness. They urged the Administration to take the next step by closing the U.S. market to seafood linked to the People’s Republic of China’s forced labor and illegal fishing practices.

The lawmakers also warned that China’s distant-water fishing fleet is not merely a commercial enterprise but “a subsidized maritime force that takes resources, pressures coastal states, and expands Beijing’s influence.” They urged the President to adopt an import prohibition modeled on existing restrictions on Russian seafood and designed to prevent evasion through transshipment, relabeling, repacking, or processing in third countries.

The letter details abuses across China’s seafood industry, including debt bondage, passport confiscation, violent abuse, labor trafficking, avoidable deaths, and coercive labor transfers. These abuses affect workers aboard fishing vessels, in seafood-processing plants, and in aquaculture operations, including operations connected to the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and Tibet. The letter also notes that the Department of Labor has identified fish harvested by Chinese distant-water fishing vessels as a forced-labor concern, while the Department of Homeland Security has designated seafood as a high-priority enforcement sector under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. The letter further cites longstanding food-safety concerns involving seafood imported from China.

The lawmakers added, “The United States cannot inspect every vessel or police every agreement the Chinese routinely break, but we can decide what enters our market. If you engage in illegal fishing and use slave labor, you should not have access to the American market.”

A copy of the letter is available [here].