The U.S. Embassy in Tokyo is considering working with the Japanese government to support scallop businesses hit by China's ban on Japanese seafood imports in the wake of the discharge of treated radioactive water from the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant, a U.S. government source said Friday.
According to the source, Chinese sorting and packing houses processed over $100 million of Japanese scallops for the U.S. market last year, but China's seafood ban is forcing Japanese scallop producers to find alternate processors.
The U.S. Embassy is "in touch with Japanese fisheries officials to direct them to U.S. Food and Drug Administration-registered processing facilities in places like Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam that will enable continued processing of U.S.-bound seafood from Japan, particularly Japanese scallops," the source said.
The United States, a close ally of Japan, has backed its release of the treated water into the Pacific Ocean, which began in late August, assessing that it is being conducted safely and "in accordance with international standards."
U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel has also shown support for Japan's move such as by visiting a fishery cooperative in Soma, Fukushima Prefecture, after the commencement of the water release, while criticizing China's seafood import ban as an "overtly political decision."
U.S. Embassy officials have been dispatched to Hokkaido in northern Japan to meet local scallop producers so that they can identify ways to "keep seafood products moving between our two countries, despite China's unwarranted ban," the source also said.
