{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://chrissmith.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=415146", "Smith-cosponsored bill combats forced labor on Chinese shipsStop Illegal Fishing Act heads to House floor", "2025-12-03", "2025", "2025-12", "Republican", "House", "NJ", "Christopher H. Smith", "S000522", "chrissmith.house.gov", "chrissmith", "https://chrissmith.house.gov/news/documentquery.aspx", "scraper", "Comprehensive legislation cosponsored by Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ)\u2014the bipartisan Stop Illegal Fishing Act (HR 6338)\u2014was today approved by the House Foreign Affairs Committee during their markup session and is now headed to the full House for its consideration.\n\nThe bill, introduced by Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), would impose sanctions upon foreign vessels or individuals that engage in illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing (IUU fishing).\n\nDuring the markup, Smith\u2014who, in 2023, chaired a Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) hearing entitled \u201cFrom Bait to Plate\u2014How Forced Labor in China Taints America's Seafood Supply Chain\u201d\u2014spoke in favor of the legislation, describing how China utilizes forced labor on their ships to cheaply and quickly process and package large volumes of seafood for international distribution\u2014including and especially to the United States.\n\nCiting expert testimony from the hearing, Smith recalled Ian Urbina\u2019s four-year investigation, which revealed that 357 of the 751 Chinese squid fleets studied\u2014nearly half\u2014had serious concerns tied to forced labor.\n\n\u201cChina\u2019s fleet is filled to overflowing with forced labor,\u201d said Smith, who has chaired more than 108 congressional hearings on human rights abuses in China. \u201cOn the fishing boats, as well as in the processing plants, China uses forced labor to undersell competitors. They have very, very small amounts of cost associated with the people around the ships.\n\n\u201cOn the open seas, cut off from contact with the land, harsh and very cruel punishment is meted out to laborers, who are treated as slaves\u2014wages are withheld. Captive peoples, especially the Uyghurs, are often conscripted onto these boats,\u201d continued the China policy expert.\n\nSmith then went on to discuss how North Korea exploits its women by forcing them to process the fish caught on Chinese fleets. The North Korean government receives significant compensation from China for these \u201cservices,\u201d which is then used to fund their military machine.\n\nDisturbingly, Smith noted, the United States government has also benefited from China\u2019s IUU fishing: \u201cHere\u2019s the kicker\u2014the United States government has been subsidizing this barbaric behavior.\n\n\u201cOur commissaries are going with the best price, and so often, the fish that lands in those commissaries is tainted with forced labor,\u201d stated the senior lawmaker.\n\n\u201cWe\u2019ve got to stop our complicity in this forced labor, and our purchase and procurement of those products made with forced labor. I, along with my colleagues on the Commission, will continue to write and ask and call that [the Trump administration] stops our complicity in this, and I do hope that this legislation passes,\u201d concluded Smith.\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T20:09:11Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://chrissmith.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=415146"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.8584964089095592, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}