July 31, 2020 — US companies importing seafood into the United States from the European Union (EU) or United Kingdom may have to contend with an up to 100-percent tariff increase as part of a decades-long US World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute over subsidies given to Netherlands-based Airbus.
On July 26 the US Trade Representative (USTR) accepted its final comments for a proposal that $3.1 billion (€2.6 billion) worth of products, including seafood, be slapped with tariffs of up to 100 percent. The United Kingdom is also included as part of that list.
The USTR is set to make a decision on the tariffs in August.
The seafood products, which have been considered for previous tariff action but have avoided US tariffs so far, are from Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain Sweden and the United Kingdom.