May 23, 2025 — In a regular season, commercial fishing boats off of the Oregon Coast set out at the beginning of April to catch Pacific pink shrimp to then be canned or frozen at a local processing facility.
This year, those plans got delayed.
“They decided to wait and put it off two weeks at least,” said Nick Edwards, the secretary of the Shrimp Producers Marketing Cooperative — he also commercially fishes Dungeness crab and pink cocktail shrimp.
Processors were waiting, following trade uncertainty after the Trump administration imposed sweeping 10% tariffs on all imported goods to the U.S. In response, countries from the European Union — one of the biggest overseas buyers of Oregon pink shrimp — imposed a 25% retaliatory tariff on goods from the U.S. The list included coldwater shrimp.