June 19, 2024 — The leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) nations, which met in Apulia, Italy, from 13 to 15 June, have issued a lengthy “Communiqué” that includes criticism of Russia’s seafood-trading practices.
The statement covers topics ranging from fostering partnerships in African countries to committing to support Ukraine in its war against Russia.
June 4, 2024 — Alaska waters produce the most seafood in the country, and many of the state’s coastal communities depend on commercial fisheries to sustain their economy.
But Alaska’s fisheries are facing a massive economic slump right now, and policymakers are increasingly blaming flooded global markets. The private sector and federal policymakers are teaming up to try to stop the bleeding.
Last year was brutal for the seafood industry. Processing companies and fishermen alike suffered amid cratering prices, and they blamed Russia for flooding markets. Republican U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, from Alaska, pointed his finger at the country at a news conference on May 23.
“Russians have essentially admitted they’re not just at war in Ukraine, they’re at war with the American fishing industry,” he said.
Alaska’s other federal delegates, Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Rep. Mary Peltola, shared similar sentiments at ComFish, a fisheries trade show in Kodiak.
The U.S. and Russia have been fighting over their seafood trade for years.
Recent highlights include a Russian ban on American goods in 2014.
The U.S. government didn’t put its own ban on Russian goods in place until Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.
Despite that embargo, there was a loophole in the U.S. restrictions, at least for seafood. Russian-caught fish processed in third-party countries, namely China, could still be sold in American markets.
That lasted until late last year. Then, amid intense lobbying from the U.S. seafood industry, President Joe Biden signed an executive order that finally closed the loophole and any chances for Russian fish getting to America.
The move could boost demand for Alaska fish in the U.S., but America is just one of three major markets for Alaska seafood — it’s sold all over the world.
April 23, 2024 — When you think of “free fish,” you’re likely to remember those generous fishermen who dropped a fresh silver salmon on your doorstep or loaded your freezer with offerings of halibut, cod and crab.
But when Senator Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) uses the term, it’s in the context of “Communist fish,” which he links to Russia (the former Soviet Union) and China.
Appearing at two ComFish events last weekend, Sullivan touted some of the work he and his colleagues have been doing in Washington, D.C., including the passage of legislation that placed an embargo on Russian fish products coming into this country.
“It took too damn long, but we finally got it done,” he said, to applause.
To no avail, Sullivan and his colleagues tried to get the Obama and Trump administrations to put an embargo on imported Russian fish.
After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, when the Biden administration was putting together “a big sanctions package, I went to the White House and said, ‘Now is the time to fix this to a level playing field.’ To their credit they did it. It took a war to fix this,” Sullivan said.
April 9, 2024 — New U.S. claims to seabed territory off Alaska have run into an obstacle: an objection from the Russian government.
The Russian government, which has staked territorial claims to most of the Arctic Ocean, is challenging the U.S. claims made in December to sovereignty over 520,400 square kilometers of extended outer continental shelf in the Arctic Ocean – an area bigger than California — and another 176,330 square kilometers in the Bering Sea.
The U.S. does not have the right to make such claims because it is not a party to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, Russia’s delegation argued at a meeting in Jamaica last month of the International Seabed Commission.
“We categorically reject the selective approach of the United States of America to the use of international law, with an emphasis on its rights and a complete disregard for obligations,” the delegation’s statement said.
U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said the Russian objection is puzzling because the claims made in December by the U.S. State Department did not overlap any territory claimed by Russia.
March 28, 2024 — A federal judge on Monday said ConAgra Brands must face a lawsuit claiming it misled U.S. consumers into believing that nine Mrs. Paul’s and Van de Kamp’s fish products were sustainably sourced.
U.S. District Judge Virginia Kendall in Chicago rejected ConAgra’s argument that the phrase “Good for the Environment” on packaging was “puffery,” meaning an overstatement or exaggeration that could not support the proposed class action.
Consumers alleged that ConAgra sourced pollock in the Bering Sea from Russian fisheries that used huge nets – sometimes larger than two American football fields – to catch fish, and indiscriminately trapped and killed endangered fish species.
They said this rendered “meaningless” ConAgra’s claim on packaging that the nonprofit Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) had certified the fisheries as sustainable.
March 11, 2024 — Russian fish flooding global markets and other economic forces beyond the state’s border have created dire conditions for Alaska’s seafood industry.
Now key legislators are seeking to establish a task force to come up with some responses to the low prices, lost market share, lost jobs and lost income being suffered by fishermen, fishing companies and fishing-related communities.
The measure, Senate Concurrent Resolution 10, was introduced on March 1 and is sponsored by the Senate Finance Committee.
“Alaska’s seafood industry is in a tailspin from facing unprecedented challenges,” said the measure’s sponsor statement issued by the committee’s co-chairs: Sen. Bert Stedman, R-Sitka; Sen. Lyman Hoffman, D-Bethel; and Sen. Donny Olson, D-Golovin. The measure is also being promoted by Senate President Gary Stevens, R-Kodiak.
The industry’s troubles caused a loss to Alaska’s economy of more than $2 billion in 2023, the sponsor statement says.
The resolution got its first hearing on Thursday in the committee that introduced it.
January 31, 2024 — Roman Tkachenko, the CEO of Direct Source Seafood, a seafood importer based in Bellevue, Washington, U.S.A., is not thrilled with the U.S. government’s decision to implement and then expand a ban on Russian seafood entering the U.S.
Russian king crab inventories are almost extinguished in the U.S., and it’s impossible to bring more in as cooked frozen legs and claws, even with third-country processing that would change the country of origin. That’s because the only way to achieve a “deep transformation” of king crab to qualify it for the change is to process it into crab meat. Cooking from live king crab it is not enough for U.S. customs authorities, Tkachenko said. And Russia is getting such high prices from Chinese and Asian buyers for whole live and frozen crab, they don’t need to sell to the U.S., he said.
January 30, 2024 — Global cod landings are down 33 percent over the past decade, and the downward trend has accelerated over the past three years.
On 25 January, at the 2024 Global Seafood Market Conference in Orlando, Florida, U.S.A., Genuine Alaska Pollock Producers Director of Industry Relations, Partnerships, and Fishery Analysis Ron Rogness reported global cod catch declined to 1.12 million metric tons (MT) in 2023.
January 26, 2024 — Dealing with Russian fisheries as the war in Ukraine drags on, on Jan. 16, Trident Seafoods announced its decision to terminate its longstanding relationship with the National Fisheries Institute (NFI). While acknowledging their history with NFI, Trident stated in its press release that it had reached a crossroads with NFI on two issues: Trident accused NFI of a lack of neutrality and transparency and mentioned it could not support NFI advocating for the presence of Russian seafood in the US market.
“NFI’s decision to advocate for the continued presence of Russian-harvested seafood in the U.S. market runs counter to national and international efforts to restrict Russia’s ability to prosecute its war against Ukraine, ignores the broad and bipartisan support in Congress for the Administration’s actions, favors keeping U.S. consumers in the dark about their seafood choices, and supports importers of Russian-harvested seafood processed in China over a fair and competitive business climate and the long-term health of the U.S. seafood supply chain,” says the Trident press release.
As Trident takes a bold stand on allowing Russian fish into the U.S., Russian politicians and bloggers are advocating a takeover of Alaska. On Jan. 19, the Russian news agency Tass reported that Vladimir Putin had signed a decree that “will allocate funds for an effort to find, register and ensure legal protection of Russia’s property abroad, including property of the Soviet Union and the Russian Empire.”
January 21, 2o24 — The U.S. Department of the Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control has issued new guidance that closes gaps in pollock tariff categories that were left open in a recent Biden administration order expanding a ban on seafood of Russian origin.
On 22 December 2023, U.S. President Joe Biden issued an executive order that expanded a U.S. ban on Russian seafood that includes imports of products that originated in Russia and were then processed in third countries, including China. The ban explicitly targets salmon, cod, pollock, and crab harvested by Russia, but prior guidance from the U.S. Department of the Treasury indicated only three pollock HTS category codes for pollock were included in the ban.