Thisweek, 38 US lawmakers signed on to a letter urging US President Joe Biden to close a loophole that still allows the importation of seafood from Russia into the United States via other countries such as China.
Last year, in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Biden signed an executive order that prohibits the importation of unaltered seafood originating in Russia. However that executive order fails to block Russian seafood that is reprocessed in China and sent to the US market.
This loophole allows products such as Russian-origin pollock reprocessed in China into the US market, making its way into popular retail and foodservice fish sandwiches and other breaded seafood items.
Some seafood executives and lawmakers point to Russia's ongoing disruption of the global market as a primary reason for the need for government intervention to curtail imports.
“New executive action to ensure US sanctions apply to all Russian-harvested seafood—regardless of its movement through third countries—is an important step to drain Putin’s war chest and bring an end to this disastrous war,” the lawmakers wrote.
“Excluding all Russian-harvested seafood from the US market would impose immediate consequences on the Russian economy.”
Russia has barred the importation of seafood from the United States and other western countries since 2014. Russia enacted its embargo in response to a suite of sanctions the United States and its allies imposed following Russia’s 2014 invasion of the Crimean Peninsula in Ukraine.
In the bipartisan letter, the lawmakers called on the Biden administration to address this loophole by expanding sanctions to cover Russian-harvested seafood, even if it is processed in third countries.
