Alaska senator desires EU to affix US in ‘financial conflict’ towards Russia seafood

Alaska Republican Senator Dan Sullivan mentioned he’s heading to Brussels later this month to press European Union management to ban Russian seafood imports.

He advised an viewers throughout Kodiak’s annual industrial fishing commerce present ComFish that he would press EU commerce officers on “not solely an importation ban of Russian seafood,” however to handle a state of affairs the place “Russian fishermen are literally promoting fish in European markets and referring to their fish as Alaskan fish.”

Sullivan, who led the federal government’s effort to shut a loophole that was permitting Russia-origin seafood reprocessed in China to enter the US market, mentioned the Alaska seafood trade stays in an “financial conflict with Russia.” The nation continues to import seafood to Europe, Japan and different key international markets.

“We’ll attempt to get our European allies to step up and work with us on closing off these Russian fish provides which might be driving down costs everywhere in the world,” he mentioned.

The EU now imposes tariffs on Russian fish heading into the 27-nation buying and selling bloc through China, however has not instituted an outright ban as did america.

One space the place US Alaska pollock producers specifically are up towards Russia is promoting surimi into Japan.

The difficult surimi market is more likely to linger as Russia’s transfer into Asian markets has additionally been accelerated by the US authorities’s government order to ban Russian-origin pollock and different key species from getting into the US market through China.

A fish focus on the USDA

One other main focus of Sullivan’s speech at ComFish was the US Division of Agriculture (USDA) taking part in a bigger function in stabilizing US seafood markets.

The senator pointed to laws referred to as the Nationwide Seafood Provide Act that will insert a complete new part within the USDA “targeted on fishermen and fish applications.”

“The USDA in some ways was set as much as assist American farmers,” Sullivan mentioned, pointing to assist equivalent to crop insurance coverage and commerce changes the company offers farmers to de-risk their operations.

For the previous a number of years, labor shortages, international market disruptions, getting old infrastructure and consolidation have disrupted the US seafood trade, with not solely fishermen however whole communities in Alaska fearing the reverberations of current plant closures.

“These are huge applications. These are multi-billion greenback applications for American farmers. However what concerning the farmers of the ocean?” he requested. “What concerning the huge challenges that we face in our fishing communities which have most of the analogous issues? Nicely, there’s not applications to do this. There are only a few applications which might be analogous.”

Sullivan mentioned the trouble to get extra assist from the USDA stays an “uphill battle” as some farmers concern they’ll lose company sources if fishermen acquire extra.

“However to me, there is a robust aspect of equity right here,” he mentioned.