【AI前沿】China’s shark finning could lead to US seafood sanctions

“make shark conservation standards real”China’s shark finning could lead to US seafood sanctionsA formal petition to the US government calls for sanctions on Chinese seafood imports.Johnny Sturgeon, Inside Climate News–May 23, 2026 7:00 am|51Shark fins drying on October 9, 2025 in Lombok, Indonesia.Credit:Robertus Pudyanto/Getty ImagesShark fins drying on October 9, 2025 in Lombok, Indonesia.Credit:Robertus Pudyanto/Getty ImagesText settingsStory textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidthStandardWideLinksStandardOrange Subscribers onlyLearn moreMinimize to navFor migrant workers trapped onboard Chinese distant water fishing fleets, cutting the fins off sharks as they writhe violently on rusted decks in the Indian Ocean isn’t accidental. It’s an intentional and lucrative act that marks the start of a bloodyhalf-a-billion-dollaroffshore supply chain, tacitly supported by Beijing yet covertly concealed from port inspectors globally.The Center for Biological Diversity, a nonprofit focused on the protection of endangered species, filed aformal petitionthis month requesting the U.S. government potentially sanction China for failing to meet American shark conservation standards. Shark populations have declined by more than 70 percent since 1970, with more than one-third of all shark and ray species now threatened with extinction. Yet each year, Chinese-flagged vessels catch, brutally fin, and discard thousands.Should the National Marine Fisheries Service identify China as having violated the US Moratorium Protection Act, then President Trump could be expected to ban the import of all$1.5 billionof Chinese seafood.“Losing sharks wouldn’t just be an ecological disaster; it would be a profound moral failure,” Alex Olivera, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in an email. “Sharks have survived for hundreds of millions of years, and it would be a tragedy if they disappeared in a few decades because governments failed to enforce basic conservation rules.”Sharks are vulnerable to overexploitation because they grow slowly, mature late, and have few offspring. Each year, however, an estimated 80 million are caught and killed either intentionally or as bycatch.Finning—which has been outlawed in the US since 2000—sees sharks dumped back in the ocean without their fins, “leading to a slow and agonizing death,” according to the petition. While botched sharks sink slowly to their deaths, the rate of shark finning has increased in recent decades. Demand is largely driven by a growing demand for shark fin soup and traditional medicinal cures in East and Southeast Asia.Official Chinese data shows that in 2023, more than 10,000 blue sharks and nearly 1,700 shortfin mako sharks were discarded by crews in the western and central Pacific region alone.While the US and over 90 other jurisdictions require fishers to land whole sharks with their fins naturally attached—a standard widely recognized as the only way to prevent finning—China does not. Although the nation has technically banned the practice, it still allows many of its fisheries to remove fins so long as they do not exceed a certain percentage—usually5 percent—of the shark’s total bodyweight upon landing.Conservationists highlight that these ratio-based regulations are ineffective, ignore biological differences between species, and are difficult to enforce accurately.“Once the fins are separated from the bodies, inspectors have a nightmare of a time figuring out which fin belongs to which shark, whether protected species are mixed in, or if bodies were just dumped overboard,” Olivera said. “It turns real enforcement into a math game rather than a secure chain of custody.”The petition argues that without a “fins naturally attached” landing policy, the Chinese fleet—the largest in the world—fails to meet America’s conservation standards, and therefore fails to meet the requirements of the Moratorium Protection Act.When asked for comment, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington told Inside Climate News that “China is deeply committed to science-based conservation and sustainable use of international fisheries resources.” The spokesperson said China is following international law, rigorous vessel monitoring and membership requirements of regional fisheries management organizations.However, the spokesperson said the government was “not familiar with the specific situation” regarding the Center for Biological Diversity’s petition, and did not reference sharks, finning or the threat of seafood sanctions.Heidy Martínez, a shark scientist and science communicator, said that shark finning “really shows how much we view these ancient, majestic animals as a commodity, as animals that are simply there to benefit us.“It highlights many of the cruel, unsustainable and wasteful practices within the fishing industry,” she said.While shark finning often receives the greatest attention for its shock factor, it’s important to note that the biggest threats s