Bipartisan Lawmakers Urge Trump to Ban Chinese Seafood

A bipartisan group of lawmakers wants President Donald Trump to ban seafood sourced by China-linked vessels or processed in China from entering the US. market, over concerns about illegal fishing and forced labor.The request was made in a July 14 letter from the chair, co-chair, and two commissioners of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, a congressional group tasked with monitoring Beijing’s compliance with international human rights standards. The commission released the letter on July 16.“The United States market is awash in criminally tainted seafood from China,” the lawmakers wrote.“Chinese seafood is too often produced through forced labor and enters our market at prices honest American fishermen cannot match,” the lawmakers added. “That is not competition. It is abuse shipped into the United States.”The letter was led by Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), the commission’s chair, and Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), its co-chair, and joined by Rep. Dale Strong (R-Ala.) and Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.).The four lawmakers urged Trump to issue a new executive order to ban Chinese seafood, declaring that China’s practices constitute an “unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States.”Such a move would build on Trump’s April 2025 executive order, the lawmakers said, which was aimed at expanding U.S. seafood production by directing the Commerce Department to ease regulatory restrictions by opening national marine monuments to commercial fishing.The 2025 executive order also directed the U.S. Trade Representative to examine trade practices of “major seafood-producing nations,” including illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing and forced labor in seafood supply chains.ConcernsThe commission cited congressional testimony and public investigations documenting extensive forced labor across China’s seafood sector, including “debt bondage, passport seizure, violent abuse, trafficked labor, avoidable deaths, and coercive labor transfers.”The documented abuses extend to fishing vessels, processing plants, and aquaculture operations linked to China’s minority regions of Xinjiang and Tibet, according to the letter.The commission held a hearing on China’s illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing in April. At the event, Ian Urbina, director and founder of the Washington-based Outlaw Ocean Project, told lawmakers that the organization’s investigation identified more than 1,200 fish farms in Xinjiang and Tibet, two of China’s most repressive regions, and found that seafood from those farms was shipped to a dozen countries, including the United States.“Not only is that a violation of the UFLPA [Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act], but some of these farms in Xinjiang are certified as sustainable by U.S.-based programs such as Best Aquaculture Practices, which seems mystifying in light of the U.S. law,” Urbina said at the hearing.The lawmakers applauded a series of actions already taken by federal agencies, noting that the Department of Labor has flagged seafood harvested by Chinese distant-water fishing vessels over forced labor concerns, the Department of Homeland Security has designated Chinese seafood as a high-priority sector under the UFLPA, and the Food and Drug Administration has imposed import restrictions on certain seafood products from China and Hong Kong over food safety risks.In May 2025, U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced it would detain at all ports any seafood tied to the Chinese commercial fishing vessel Zhen Fa 7, saying suspected forced labor aboard the ship allowed its products to be sold below market prices.The lawmakers added that allowing seafood harvested by China’s distant-water fleet into the U.S. market indirectly finances what they called a “subsidized maritime force” that crowds allies’ waters, depletes marine resources, and challenges the rules at sea.Citing a 2021 report by the U.S. International Trade Commission, the lawmakers pointed out that removing IUU-associated imports from the U.S. market would increase U.S. commercial fishermen’s seafood caught and brought ashore by about 70.5 million kilograms and increase operating income by $60.8 million.ActionsTo combat IUU fishing, the bipartisan Fighting Foreign Illegal Seafood Harvest (FISH) Act advanced in both chambers of Congress this year following its introduction in 2025.The Senate bill (S.688), cosponsored by Merkley, passed the Senate unanimously in March. The House bill (H.R.3756), backed by Smith, passed the House Natural Resources Committee in April.The legislation would establish a blacklist of vessels engaged in IUU fishing and ban them from U.S. ports and waters, and enhance the U.S. Coast Guard’s enforcement capabilities.In their letter to Trump, the lawmakers suggested that the president could use the existing U.S. ban on Russian seafood as a model for banning Chinese seafood, saying it would be important to prevent evasion through relabeling, repacking, transshipment, or third-country processing.The Biden administration imposed the ban on Russian seafood in 2022 after Moscow invaded Ukraine and expanded it in 2023 to prevent third-country processing from being used to circumvent the ban.“The United States cannot inspect every vessel or police every agreement the Chinese routinely break, but we can decide what enters our market,” the lawmakers wrote.“Banning Chinese seafood from the United States would back American fishermen, protect American consumers, support our allies, and cut off profits from a system built on abuse and coercion.”