Senators Call for Action on Imports of Seafood Caught With Forced Labor
Senators and witnesses called for legislative action to combat imports of seafood caught with forced labor during a June 12 hearing.
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The hearing was held by the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Coast Guard, Maritime, and Fisheries. Subcommittee Chairman Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, said that Chinese fishing vessels are undercutting American fishermen with slave labor: "I don't think any American thinks this is a good idea, that we're importing Chinese slave labor fish. It's putting hard-working American fishermen and their families out of business."
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, the Commerce Committee Chairman, called the Chinese practice "barbaric economic warfare" and that crew members on these vessels are "held against their will, denied basic human rights and even subjected to physical violence." He said the U.S. must "confront the threat posed by China's" fishing fleets.
Nathan Rickard, a partner at Picard Kentz, said in his written testimony that the Fighting Foreign Illegal Seafood Harvests Act of 2025 would "effectively counter abhorrent practices in foreign fisheries" by "prohibiting the importation of any seafood caught, processed, or transported by foreign vessels" on list of bad actors and by "requiring that CBP develop a strategy to identify imports of seafood harvested using forced labor." He also praised President Donald Trump's April executive order (see 2504170052), saying that it "reinforced the vital nature of the domestic seafood producers to the American economy."
Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester, D-Del., said that forced labor is "rampant in China's seafood industry and processing plants" but that Republican cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminstration hampered efforts to increase transparency in the seafood supply chain.
Rickard said that banning all imports of Chinese seafood would be an "appropriate response," when asked by Sullivan: "Just for me, I think that that is an appropriate response to what is a huge challenge internationally."