Sullivan: Russia flooding markets to drive down Alaska fish prices

Sen. Dan Sullivan used a hearing he chaired Tuesday to argue that Russia is waging economic war on Alaska's fishing industry — flooding global markets with cheap fish to push down prices — and to take credit for a U.S. ban on Russian seafood imports meant to fight back. Independent reporting suggests that ban is far leakier than the senator's account implies.

Sullivan, an Alaska Republican, spoke at the June 2 Senate Commerce subcommittee hearing "The Blue Economy: Advancing American Fisheries, Maritime Strength, and Coastal Economies." "Americans are buying American freedom fish, not communist fish from Russia," he said, pointing to President Trump's extension of the import ban into 2027.

Three of the hearing's four witnesses were Alaskans, among them Jeremy Woodrow of the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, which has publicly backed expanding the ban. Woodrow testified that processors told Alaska pink salmon fishermen to stop fishing two years ago because they couldn't sell their catch — a glut he attributed to Russia dumping pink salmon into the global supply. Testimony put Russia's pollock harvest at 2.46 million tons, up from 1.75 million in 2021, while U.S. harvests held steady — evidence Sullivan cited of heavily subsidized Russian fleets.

The policy history is real. The U.S. barred direct imports of Russian seafood in 2022 and, in December 2023, expanded the prohibition to cover Russian-caught fish even when processed in a third country.

But whether that adds up to the "comprehensive ban" Sullivan describes is contested. Investigations by PBS, the trade outlet SeafoodSource, and University of Washington researchers have found that large volumes of Russian seafood still reach American plates by way of China, where Russian pollock and salmon are thawed, reprocessed, and relabeled "product of China" — a designation that can legally enter the U.S. because country-of-origin catch labeling isn't required. By some estimates roughly 89 percent of Russian seafood still moves through China, and twice-frozen Russian-origin pollock makes up about 40 percent of the pollock on the world market.

Analysts also caution that Russia is not the only force behind the price collapse that battered Alaska fishermen in 2023 and 2024. Cheap Russian fish is a widely cited factor, but high global inventories, a strong dollar, and softening demand have weighed on prices as well.

The hearing still reflected broad Alaska agreement that Russian competition has hurt the state's fleets. The sharper disagreement, mostly outside the hearing room, is over how much a porous ban can actually do about it.