US Senators Push For Ban On Chinese Tuna Products

Senators Katie Britt and Rick Scott, from Alabama and Florida, respectively, sent a letter to Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick last week urging Washington to ban Chinese tuna products from entering the country. The letter read that China, the world’s largest exporter of seafood to the US, has turned IUU fishing into a weapon to undermine US workers, threaten national security, and perpetuate human rights abuses. “It includes the use of forced and child labor, human trafficking, and dangerous working conditions that claim over 100,000 lives annually in the commercial fishing industry.”

China is among the top five sellers of canned bonito to the US. From January to June this year, the US imported 781 M/T of this product from China, more than a halving compared to the same period last year. China’s tuna products trade fell drastically from 2018, due to an economic war kicked off by US President Donald Trump in his first term in office.