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U.S. Efforts to Combat Illegal Fishing and Associated Labor Abuses – United States Department of State

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Illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing is a serious global problem that threatens the health and stability of ocean ecosystems and fisheries, food security, and economic growth, while undermining law-abiding fishers and communities that depend on them in the United States and around the world. IUU fishing can take many forms, ranging from the small-scale misreporting of catch, to large-scale, coordinated efforts by transnational crime syndicates, and may also involve forced labor and other human rights abuses.

The United States is committed to combatting IUU fishing at home and abroad. In June 2022, President Biden signed the historic National Security Memorandum on Combating Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated Fishing and Associated Labor Abuses (NSM-11), directing agencies to put their authorities to work tackling the problem of IUU fishing and associated labor abuses in the seafood supply chain.

In October 2022, the Interagency Working Group on IUU Fishing, established under the 2019 Maritime Security and Fisheries Enforcement (SAFE) Act, published the National 5-Year Strategy for Combatting IUU Fishing. This strategy enables 21 agencies and offices across the U.S. government to coordinate in promoting stronger fishing rules and stricter compliance, while also preventing seafood caught by IUU fishing and seafood produced with forced labor or other labor rights abuses from entering commercial trade. The working group coordinates U.S. engagement on addressing IUU fishing in priority regions around the world, including Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific Islands, with special emphasis on strengthening partnerships with Ecuador, Panama, Senegal, Taiwan, and Vietnam.

Today, the State Department, as chair of the Interagency Working Group, is providing a progress report on actions taken to date under NSM-11 and the National 5-Year Strategy. Highlights include —

Underlying all of these important actions, the United States has raised awareness among decision-makers in government, industry, and labor organizations regarding how to combat IUU fishing and promote respect for the labor rights of fisheries workers.

A detailed list of updates, actions, and accomplishments under NSM-11 and the National 5-Year Strategy for Combatting IUU Fishing follows:

Actions to promote stronger rules for fisheries to advance their sustainable use and conservation and to counter human rights abuses in seafood supply chains. Sound and sustainable global fisheries governance is crucial to combatting IUU fishing and associated labor rights abuses. The United States has taken the following actions to foster comprehensive and transparent fishery management that supports ocean conservation and facilitates safe working practices and conditions across the supply chain, including during seafood harvesting and processing.

Actions to promote stricter compliance with fishing rules by strengthening enforcement. Sustainable fisheries governance and respect for labor rights depends on compliance by fishing vessels and other seafood supply chain actors with U.S. authorities and international fisheries conservation and management measures, as well as worker protection and safety standards. The United States has improved monitoring and enforcement practices and technologies, expanded information sharing capacities across domestic agencies and international partners, and delivered penalties for violations to promote compliance.

  • The United States has taken direct actions, including mobilizing assets and sanctioning violators, to combat IUU fishing and associated labor rights abuses on the high seas and in collaboration with partner governments:
    • USCG executed numerous patrols and high seas boarding and inspections (HSBI) to ensure compliance with established conservation and management measures. Patrols took place in the WCPFC, NPFC, SPRFMO, and ICCAT convention areas.
    • USCG executed shiprider boardings with 14 partner nations. These operations focused on advising, training, and capacity building with allies and partners, under bilateral maritime law enforcement agreements that include shiprider provisions, to maintain a rules-based international system that promotes peace, security, and prosperity, while protecting maritime rights and jurisdiction.
    • The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned five Gulf Cartel-linked individuals who were engaged in criminal activities associated with IUU fishing, pursuant to Executive Order 14059, which targets persons involved in the Global Illicit Drug Trade. OFAC’s action was developed in close collaboration with the USCG, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), and the U.S. Interagency Working Group on IUU Fishing. The action highlighted how transnational criminal organizations rely on a variety of illicit schemes like IUU fishing to fund their operations, along with narcotics trafficking and human smuggling.
  • The United States has provided intelligence, equipment, and funding to support the monitoring and enforcement capacities of partner nations:
    • U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) identified and provided operational intelligence on 103 fishing vessels suspected of IUU fishing activity operating in West Africa. The information, which tied illegal activity to 11 distinct fleets, was provided to the relevant U.S. government agencies and partner nations for ongoing action.
    • USFWS provided strategic and operational analysis in support of maritime efforts and intelligence exchanges with Angola, Tanzania, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Morocco and with partner nations in the Red Sea, Gulf of Guinea, Western Mediterranean Sea, and Southern Africa. The effort supported partner nation’s law enforcement activities with vessel trend analysis, pattern detection, the identification of dense levels of potential IUU fishing activity, and information regarding specific vessels of interest, including beneficial ownership information. USFWS also contributed to a series of regional and national products that geographically and temporally defined the scope of suspected illicit maritime activities, such as IUU fishing in East Africa.
    • The Navy upgraded and shared SeaVision maritime domain awareness (MDA) tools with partner nations. SeaVision is a web-based maritime situational awareness tool that enables users to view and share a broad array of maritime information to improve maritime operations, increase maritime security, and build partnerships within the maritime community. SeaVision makes unclassified MDA data available to other U.S. federal departments and agencies and foreign partners, appropriate and consistent with law, regulation, policy, and guidance. The Navy updated SeaVision to allow for AI-powered vessel detection and insights on anomalous behavior and enabled it to use commercial imagery to improve monitoring of fishing practices throughout the world. Several expert exchanges have been conducted to support the operational and analytic capabilities of partner nations, including Panama and Vietnam.
    • The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) developed products analyzing trends in regional IUU fishing activity to support geographic combatant commands, and partner nation efforts to illuminate IUU fishing activity within their territorial seas and EEZs. NGA also partnered with the National Security Innovation Network on a Global Fishing Forecast Grand Challenge, in which non-federal innovators developed concepts of operations to forecast fishing globally. In addition, NGA solicited additional commercial techniques for identifying, monitoring, and tracking illicit maritime vessel activity as part of Project Aegir, which supports maritime domain awareness.
    • DOD, in partnership with counterparts in Australia, India, and Japan, committed to expand maritime transparency in the Indo-Pacific. New investments under the Indo-Pacific Partnership for Maritime Domain Awareness (IPMDA) will enhance partners’ abilities to monitor waters along their shores and identify illicit activity taking place within their jurisdiction with electro-optical data and advanced analytic software.
    • DOD has invested approximately $475M globally in Fiscal Year 2024 in security cooperation resources to advance partner nation capabilities. Purchases include radars, maritime patrol aircraft, and MDA software to monitor, detect, and respond to illicit activities in the maritime domain.
    • The Department of State (State) provided Peacekeeping Operations (PKO) funding to support equipment purchases and training programs for partner governments. These include three unmanned aerial systems, spare parts, and training for the Comorian Coast Guard (CCG) to support its counter IUU fishing capabilities in its EEZ, and radars, equipment, and training to strengthen Gabon’s Regional Maritime Awareness Capability program.
    • State funded the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Global Maritime Crime Programme (GMCP) to support National Maritime Joint Operations Centers in Tanzania, Madagascar, and Mozambique. The funds, provided in 2024, will enable these countries to monitor and respond to maritime crimes in their EEZs. State also funded UNODC-GMCP to support Comoros in adopting a legal framework for the use of modern ocean surveillance and communication technologies to hold IUU fishing vessels accountable.
  • The United States has contributed to trainings to strengthen the abilities of partner nations to combat IUU fishing and labor rights abuses:
    • U.S. agencies supported workshops and trainings to increase the capacity of nations to counter IUU fishing in priority regions designated in the National 5-Year Strategy for Combating IUU Fishing. NOAA facilitated 15 training workshops for ASEAN member states to support implementation of the Port State Measures Agreement (PSMA), enforcing and prosecuting fisheries violations, and approaches for monitoring, control, and surveillance. NOAA also supported five workshops for Ecuador and Peru on PSMA implementation. In addition, NOAA supported seven workshops on fisheries enforcement with the USCG, two workshops on investigating nature crimes in Honduras with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ); a workshop on Vessel Monitoring System (VMS) data analysis in Vietnam with USCG, and a regional workshop on counter-IUU fishing in Southeast Asia with State and the USCG. State and NOAA also held two workshops on fisheries law enforcement and prosecution with law enforcement personnel from Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, and El Salvador.
    • U.S. agencies hosted and participated in partner-sponsored multilateral operations and exercises to increase readiness of participating forces to counter illicit activity in the maritime domain. DOD hosted OBANGAME and CUTLASS EXPRESS in Africa and TRADEWINDS in Barbados. USCG participated in North Pacific Guard, sponsored by Canada; DALAPEX, hosted by Ecuador; and NASSE, sponsored by the Forum Fisheries Agency.
    • DOL funded the Decent Work in Fishing project, a $10 million project implemented by the ILO and the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF). The project focuses on strengthening decent working conditions in Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Peru and Uruguay, by countering IUU fishing in coastal communities. Through the project, the ILO and ITF trained 51 participants from the coast guard, the labor inspectorate, port authorities, and others in conducting labor inspections on fishing vessels in port in Peru and Ecuador in May 2024.
    • State funded the UNODC-GMCP to train Senegalese judges and prosecutors on maritime law specific to IUU fishing. These efforts aim to increase public awareness and uncover actors who are engaging in or facilitating IUU fishing while increasing the capacity of the judiciary to process cases.
    • NOAA and the USCG hosted seminars for executives and other senior-level officials to assist partner nations in developing and strengthening their fisheries enforcement regimes. USCG and NOAA provided seminars to Costa Rica, Mexico, Mauritania, Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire, Sierra Leone, Vietnam, and Taiwan.
    • State and Vietnam’s Department of Fisheries Surveillance co-hosted the third regional workshop on combatting IUU fishing. The workshop aimed to enhance cooperation among Southeast Asian enforcement agencies by sharing best practices, improving enforcement coordination and information-sharing, and holding bilateral meetings to operationalize discussions. It included over 70 participants from 12 countries and 20 law enforcement agencies, with presentations by USCG, State, DOJ, NOAA, and experts from Japan, Korea, and other countries.
    • USAID worked with government partners in Honduras and Ecuador to strengthen anti-corruption systems and counter IUU fishing. In Honduras, this work identified porous borders that enable marine wildlife trafficking. In Ecuador, USAID supported NGO partners to convene public and private fisheries actors to assess corruption risks and obtain commitments for pursuing a fisheries transparency agenda; the program also supported a new Environmental Crimes Unit within the Federal Prosecutor’s office, training 40 attorneys.

Actions to prevent IUU fish or fish products seafood or seafood produced with forced labor from entering into commercial trade. Preventing IUU fish or fish products or seafood produced with forced labor from entering commercial markets prevents perpetrators from profiting from illicit activities. The United States is strengthening global import controls, conducting comprehensive import inspections and seizures, and providing information to make the supply chain more transparent and accountable.

  • The United States has taken steps to protect its domestic market from imports of IUU fish or fish products or seafood produced with forced labor:
    • CBP is actively enforcing 51 withhold release orders (WROs) and 9 Findings, of which 4 WROs and one Finding are specific to the seafood sector. CBP and NOAA conducted 114 physical inspections of imported seafood products at our nation’s busiest ports, seized over 9 tons of illegal seafood, and denied entry of nearly 200 tons of seafood into U.S. commerce in Fiscal Year 2024, resulting in fines and penalties exceeding $273,000. In addition, USFWS conducted numerous seizures of illegal seafood products under CITES, the Lacey Act, the Endangered Species Act, and other international and domestic regulations.
    • NOAA announced an action plan to improve the ability of the United States to strengthen and enhance our ability to combat IUU fishing sea seafood fraud. The action plan’s four goals include: (1) Enhancing NOAA’s ability to combat IUU fishing through improved traceability and risk detection, strengthening the sustainability of seafood globally; (2) Contributing to government-wide efforts to address forced labor in the global seafood supply chain; (3) Strengthening the integrity and fairness of global seafood supply chains by promoting fair seafood trade practices around the world; and, (4) Improving NOAA’s implementation of its Seafood Import and Monitoring Program (SIMP) and building capacity to maintain and grow the program.
    • The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), through the Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force (FLETF), designated seafood as a High Priority Sector for Enforcement under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA). As part of its 2024 update to UFLPA Strategy, the FLETF’s inclusion of the seafood sector signals to the importing community a need to enhance their due diligence of seafood supply chains that have a higher risk of involving forced labor. The FLETF also added a Shandong province-based seafood processor to the UFLPA Entity List in June 2024, subjecting goods produced by this entity to special measures under Section 307 of the Tariff Act of 1930, which prohibits imports of goods made with forced labor.
    • NOAA released its biennial Report to Congress on Improving International Fisheries Management in August 2023. In this report, NOAA identified seven nations and entities for IUU fishing: Angola, Grenada, Mexico, the People’s Republic of China, Taiwan, The Gambia, and Vanuatu. Identifications for the PRC and Taiwan included consideration of products produced with forced labor in their distant water fisheries. The report’s publication initiated a period of bilateral consultation with each of the identified nations and entities, during which NOAA has worked closely with nations and entities to address the activities that led to identification – which helps ensure that the fish and fish products the United States imports are caught sustainably and legally.
  • The United States supported partner nations in implementing the PSMA, strengthening their abilities to identify and prevent IUU fish and fish product from entering into their markets:
    • USAID and NOAA strengthened partner-government capacities to implement the PSMA in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Southeast Asia. In Indonesia, these efforts strengthened the capacity of 17 local trainers, who can now replicate the training, allowing effective implementation of the Agreement in designated ports to limit IUU fish and fish products from entering the market.
    • State submitted a successful proposal to the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) to build the capacity of participants to effectively implement port state measures to combat IUU fishing. The workshop, to be co-chaired in 2025 by the United States, the Philippines, and the Republic of Korea, will facilitate developing legislative frameworks and resources that support port state measures and will strengthen enforcement at ports.
  • The United States has supported the creation of approaches that increase transparency of seafood sourcing and the labor conditions involved in seafood production:
    • USAID advanced legal, sustainable trade in seafood through private sector partnerships and financial incentives for better harvesting practices. For example, USAID supported non-governmental partners in incorporating a new IUU fishing risk score into FishSource, a freely available online resource that profiles fisheries to inform buyer decisions. FishSource covers nearly 40% of global landings and an estimated 80% of what is sold at retail in North America and Europe.
    • USAID supported more than 20 local businesses to form the Better Seafood Philippines program. The program encourages adherence to sustainable seafood sourcing standards, incentivizes sustainable fishing practices through provision of a premium price, and trains women’s associations on proper seafood processing and handling.
    • DOL provided a suite of market tools to increase transparency around seafood products obtained and produced by forced labor. For example, the Sweat and Toil App presents information on seafood and other products made with forced labor or child labor in an accessible, user-friendly format. The Better Trade Tool provides data on goods imported into the United States that are at risk of being produced with forced labor or child labor. DOL’s Comply Chain tool helps companies undertake effective due diligence to identify, address and mitigate child labor and forced labor in their global supply chains.

    Action to raise awareness of IUU fishing and associated labor rights abuses. The United States has convened international and domestic multistakeholder summits and conferences, and facilitated public engagement and education on IUU fishing and related issues.

    • The United States facilitated multi-stakeholder meetings and events to support actionable conversations, information sharing, and awareness raising activities:
      • The United States launched the IUU Fishing Action Alliance with the United Kingdom and Canada. Initiated in 2022 to elevate the ambition of member governments in combatting IUU fishing, the Alliance held a high-level roundtable discussion at the 2024 Our Ocean Conference (OOC) on how to improve transparency in the seafood supply chain. DOL also engaged multilaterally and with international organizations, such as the ILO, in the first-ever OOC side event on labor rights in the fishing sector.
      • NOAA developed, established, and chaired the Collaborative Accelerator for Lawful Maritime Conditions in Seafood (CALM-CS) with participation from USAID, USCG, DOL, State, and representatives from all relevant sectors to promote legal and safe working conditions throughout the fishing and seafood industry. In February 2024, NOAA hosted a capstone summit for more than 100 participants across the seafood sector to conclude CALM-CS and widely share lessons learned.
      • State hosted 16 stakeholder talks for the Maritime SAFE interagency working group in the past year. These talks have served as an opportunity to build awareness and bridges between the U.S. government and non-governmental and intergovernmental organizations, academia, and others who are working to counter IUU fishing.
      • DHS, DOL, and State hosted a three-part webinar series on UFLPA specifically designed for the seafood industry in November 2024. Part of implementing DHS’s outreach strategy to High Priority Sectors for Enforcement under the UFLPA Strategy, the webinars, open to the public, included an overview of the UFLPA and the Entity List, CBP’s enforcement processes and procedures, as well as best practices for effective due diligence on seafood supply chains. DHS also hosted a roundtable with seafood industry leaders in October 2024, to facilitate a discussion and dialogue between FLETF agencies, including DOL, State, and NOAA, and the seafood industry on the impact of UFLPA on seafood trade, and to exchange information and best practices in identifying and mitigating the risk of forced labor in seafood supply chains.
      • DOL hosted a panel to highlight the labor rights of fisheries workers in seafood supply chains and effective approaches for companies to conduct due diligence. The panel at the 2024 Seafood Expo Global in Barcelona included a survivor of human trafficking in the seafood sector and representatives from the seafood industry and the International Transport Workers’ Federation. DOL also moderated a panel at the 2024 Seafood Expo North America to discuss effective multi-stakeholder partnerships to promote worker rights in fishing for an audience of private sector and civil society stakeholders.
      • USAID worked in the coastal regions of Ghana to prevent child labor and trafficking in the fishing sector by strengthening support networks, raising awareness around children’s rights, and addressing poverty and migration patterns that drive the practice. To achieve these goals, USAID implementers have trained over 3000 individuals and 40 journalists.
    • The United States supported the development of tools, research, and other public outreach activities to amplify the IUU fishing and labor rights abuses issues:
      • State released research in February 2024 titled “Estimating the Prevalence of Forced Labor in the Fishing Industry in Costa Rica. ” This study, supported by a $1.6 million grant and conducted by New York University (NYU) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Costa Rica, highlighted the pervasive, often violent forced labor in the Puntarenas fishing sector, affecting both men and women, and aimed to improve data collection and support local authorities in countering trafficking.
      • DOL published two seafood-related supply chain studies in September 2024 to support research and policy approaches. The studies focused on the fish supply chain in Thailand and forced labor and child labor in the fish industry of Peru.
      • DHS led the Center for Countering Human Trafficking (CCHT) created a Forced Labor Awareness Poster Series in multiple languages as part of a working group also involving NOAA, USCG, and non-governmental organizations. The posters raise awareness and provide methods for contacting the National Human Trafficking Hotline.
      • USAID support in Thailand has helped to amplify the voices of fish workers, raising scrutiny about proposed rollbacks to the rights of workers under Thailand’s fisheries law.
      • DOL launched a year-long #BaitToPlate social media campaign dedicated to labor in fishing, which includes a fishing fact sheet on strengthening labor conditions and promoting good jobs in the fishing sector.



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