U.S. bans entire Chinese fishing fleet's imports over forced labor abuses

On a Friday in late May, the U.S. government took an action it had never taken before: it blocked imports from an entire fishing fleet. The target was Dalian Ocean Fishing, a Chinese company operating more than thirty vessels around the world, primarily hunting high-grade tuna. Federal authorities said the company had forced its crew members—mostly foreign nationals—to work under conditions so brutal they amounted to modern slavery, and that at least three Indonesian fishermen had died as a result.

The decision came down as a withhold release order from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, invoking a law that had been on the books since 1930 but had seen increased use in recent years as awareness grew of forced labor in global supply chains. The order meant that any seafood shipment connected to Dalian's operations would be stopped at the border, effective immediately. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced the measure with a direct statement: the government would not accept goods produced through forced labor, period.

The investigation found that Dalian's practices met all eleven criteria for forced labor established by the International Labor Organization. Workers faced wage theft—their pay was withheld or paid far below what had been promised. They endured inhumane living and working conditions. They were subjected to physical intimidation. John Leonard, the acting executive assistant commissioner of CBP's Office of Trade, called it "a rather egregious example." The abuse was not confined to one vessel or one region; it was systematic across the fleet.

Indonesia's government had documented the specifics a year earlier, in May 2020. Dozens of Indonesian fishermen working for Dalian were forced to labor eighteen hours a day—some reports said up to twenty-two hours—for no compensation or for wages far below what they had agreed to accept. The conditions were so severe that illnesses developed and spread. At least three men died. Their bodies were thrown overboard into the Pacific Ocean. The Indonesian government called the treatment "inhuman."

Dalian's import volumes to the United States had already been declining. In 2018, the company shipped more than twenty million dollars' worth of seafood to American markets. By 2019, that had fallen to 1.8 million dollars. In 2020, it dropped to just over three hundred thousand dollars. Through April of 2021, the company had shipped seven hundred sixty-three thousand dollars' worth. The withhold release order would cut off what remained.

This was the first time the U.S. had moved against an entire company's fleet under the forced labor statute. Previous actions had targeted specific vessels, individual companies, or product categories—the government had blocked all cotton and tomato products from Xinjiang, for instance, citing the Chinese government's campaign against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities. But a blanket ban on every ship in a single company's operation was new. It signaled that CBP's investigation had uncovered evidence of widespread, systematic abuse across Dalian's global operations, not isolated incidents on particular boats.

Both the State Department and the Labor Department had separately documented the broader pattern: Chinese fishing fleets, crewed largely by foreign workers, operated under conditions of extreme exploitation. Eighteen to twenty-two hour workdays were common. Pay was minimal or nonexistent. Living conditions were abysmal. The industry had become a known site of modern slavery, and the U.S. government was now using its trade authority to push back. Dalian did not respond to requests for comment.