A report by the US International Trade Commission (USITC) states that in 2019 the USA imported seafood worth an estimated $2.4 billion derived IUU fishing.
The USITC report was requested in late 2019 by the House Committee on Ways and Means, and the resulting 460-page Seafood Obtained via Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated Fishing: U.S. Imports and Economic Impact on U.S. Commercial Fisheries sets out that this $2.4 billion worth of seafood derived from IUU fishing in that year represents nearly 11% of total US seafood imports, and over 13% of US imports caught at sea (marine capture).
Key marine capture IUU species include swimming crab, wild-caught warmwater shrimp, yellowfin tuna and squid, with China, Russia, Mexico, Vietnam, and Indonesia identified as supplying substantial volumes of marine capture IUU seafood to the United States.
According to the USITC findings, the elimination of IUU imports from the US market would have a positive effect on US commercial fisheries, increasing prices and landings of US-caught seafood, and improving operating incomes.
USITC is an independent, nonpartisan, factfinding federal agency which makes no recommendations on policy or other matters in its general factfinding reports.
Upon completion of each investigation, the USITC submits its findings and analyses to requesters, which are generally the US Trade Representative, the House Committee on Ways and Means, or the Senate Committee on Finance. General factfinding investigation reports are subsequently released to the public, unless classified by the requester for national security reasons.
