January 26, 2024 — Dealing with Russian fisheries as the war in Ukraine drags on, on Jan. 16, Trident Seafoods announced its decision to terminate its longstanding relationship with the National Fisheries Institute (NFI). While acknowledging their history with NFI, Trident stated in its press release that it had reached a crossroads with NFI on two issues: Trident accused NFI of a lack of neutrality and transparency and mentioned it could not support NFI advocating for the presence of Russian seafood in the US market.
“NFI’s decision to advocate for the continued presence of Russian-harvested seafood in the U.S. market runs counter to national and international efforts to restrict Russia’s ability to prosecute its war against Ukraine, ignores the broad and bipartisan support in Congress for the Administration’s actions, favors keeping U.S. consumers in the dark about their seafood choices, and supports importers of Russian-harvested seafood processed in China over a fair and competitive business climate and the long-term health of the U.S. seafood supply chain,” says the Trident press release.
As Trident takes a bold stand on allowing Russian fish into the U.S., Russian politicians and bloggers are advocating a takeover of Alaska. On Jan. 19, the Russian news agency Tass reported that Vladimir Putin had signed a decree that “will allocate funds for an effort to find, register and ensure legal protection of Russia’s property abroad, including property of the Soviet Union and the Russian Empire.”