September 25, 2018 — US president Donald Trump’s 10% tariffs that went into effect Monday for nearly 6,000 Chinese goods are bad news for all of the US harvesters of seafood sent to China for processing, but they come at a particularly unfortunate time for the five companies with flatfish-catching vessels in Alaska’s Amendment 80 fleet.
Those harvesters have spent more than a combined $285 million over the past six years to replace or significantly improve their 19 ships, according to Chris Woodley, executive director of the Groundfish Forum, the trade group that represents them.
Woodley told Undercurrent News on Friday that he doesn’t know how the tariffs will immediately impact his members or if any of the additional cost might make them want to hit pause on their recent recapitalization effort.
“As far as specific business arrangements with individual companies, each A80 [Amendment 80] company has got its own supply chain and its own buyers,” he said. “It’s not a monolithic block. So, all we know right now is that the fish products harvested by the A80 fleet are on the list to have tariffs imposed, and that’s where we are.”