Putin’s Pollock: US seafood imports fuel Russian war machine
FILE- A cod fish sits on ice at the Portland Fish Exchange, in Portland, Maine. A U.S. ban on seafood imports from Russia over its invasion of Ukraine was supposed to sap billions of dollars from Vladimir Putin’s war machine. But shortcomings in import regulations means that Russian-caught pollock, salmon and crab are likely to enter the U.S. anyway, by way of the country vital to seafood supply chains across the world: China. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, File)
MIAMI (AP) — A U.S. ban on seafood imports from Russia over its invasion of Ukraine was supposed to sap billions of dollars from Vladimir Putin’s war machine.
But shortcomings in import regulations mean that Russian-caught pollock, salmon and crab are likely to enter the U.S. anyway, by way of the country vital to seafood supply chains across the world: China.
Like the U.S. seafood industry, Russian companies rely heavily on China to process their catch, which then can be re-exported to the U.S. as a “product of China.”
The result: Nearly a third of the wild-caught fish imported from China was caught in Russian waters.
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