Saving Seafood

Sen. Murkowski Questions International Trade Administration on Alaskan Seafood Industry Concerns

September 12, 2018 — The following was released by The Office of Senator Lisa Murkowski:

U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) participated in a Commerce, Justice, and Science (CJS) Appropriations Subcommittee hearing yesterday, to review the President’s Fiscal Year 2019 (FY19) funding request for the Bureau of Industry and Security, the International Trade Administration, and the United States International Trade Commission.

Witnesses participating in the hearing included: Nazak Nikakhtar, Assistant Secretary for Industry and Analysis at the International Trade Administration (ITA); Richard Ashooh, Assistant Secretary for Export Administration at the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS); and David S. Johanson, Chairman at the United States International Trade Commission (USITC).

During the hearing Senator Murkowski expressed some of the concerns of Alaskan stakeholders regarding the seafood industry.

“Until recently, a positive trade relationship was developing between Alaska and China—of our salmon exports, 40% of those exports went to China. For cod, 54% of our exports went to China. In 2017, we saw roughly 1/3 of Alaska’s seafood exports end up in China, worth nearly $1 billion. So this is considerable” said Senator Murkowski. “Now, Alaskans are facing steep Chinese tariffs on these exports—a pretty significant trade barrier. This is on top of lost market share due to the Russian embargo on American seafood, which has been in place since 2014 as retaliation for sanctions, and challenging import quotas that currently exist in the EU, Japan, and South Korea.”

Murkowski went on to question Assistant Secretary Nikakhtar on the ITA’s strategy towards the retaliatory tariffs imposed on the seafood industry and barriers to seafood industry trade.

Read the full release here

Trump calls for more tariffs in scale-up of trade war against China

September 10, 2018 — U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to extend U.S. tariffs to an additional USD 267 billion (EUR 230.1 billion) worth of Chinese goods in comments made on Friday, 7 September.

Trump said the new round of tariffs will “take place very soon, depending on what happens.” He added a new list of goods to be affected by the tariffs is ready to go and could be rolled out on short notice, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Trump’s administration previously announced tariffs on USD 200 billion (EUR 170 billion) of Chinese goods on 11 July. That was a follow-up on his levying of tariffs on USD 50 billion (EUR 29.3 billion) worth of Chinese goods in June, and China’s equivalent response later that month.

“If the United States insists on imposing another round of tariffs on Chinese products, China will definitely take countermeasures to safeguard its legitimate rights and interests,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said following publication of Trump’s threat on 7 September.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

 

Tariffs throw wrench into seafood supply chain

September 6, 2018 — Many seafood processors, fishermen and support businesses have been watching with increasing dismay as the trade war between U.S. and China heats up and impacts billions of dollars in trade.

In March, President Donald Trump’s administration announced its intention to levy tariffs against China in connection with “unfair” trade practices, including theft of intellectual property. When the first round of tariffs on Chinese products were announced, the seafood industry hoped to escape the list of impacted items.

That hope faded when a host of seafood products were included on the list of proposed retaliatory tariffs from the Chinese government. Then Office of the U.S. Trade Representative proposed another set of tariffs, including seafood products, at 10 percent in July. Then that number was upped to 25 percent in August.

In a hearing hosted by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative Aug. 20–24, Bob DeHaan of the National Fisheries Institute said the tariffs will effectively punish American fishermen for Chinese intellectual property theft, which has nothing to do with them. Of the $2.7 billion in proposed tariffs on seafood, more than $95 million came from Alaskan fishermen.

“In many cases such as the iconic Bristol Bay salmon run that just concluded this year, the fishermen are family-owned enterprises who sell their catch to seafood companies for processing, distribution and sale around the world,” he said. “How punishing these harvesters and these businesses for in effect buying American will convince China to respect its obligations regarding intellectual property rights and technology transfers is difficult to fathom.”

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce

Alaskans worried by prospect of deep-sea fish farms

September 4, 2018 — In a Centennial Hall listening session, Alaskans raised concerns about federal plans to boost open-ocean fish farms under a new strategic plan for the U.S. Department of Commerce.

On Friday afternoon, Tim Gallaudet, acting undersecretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere, hosted a listening session at the end of a weeklong gathering of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration experts in Juneau.

NOAA is an agency of the Department of Commerce, and Gallaudet is among the figures hosting meetings across the country as part of the process that creates the strategic plan.

In a speech opening the listening session, Gallaudet said the strategic plan is an “initiative to grow the American ‘blue economy.’”

That phrase is used as an umbrella term that includes fisheries, oceanic tourism and other aspects of the national economy that relate to the oceans.

Gallaudet echoed the familiar refrains of the Trump Administration, saying the department is interested in deregulation and “reducing the seafood trade deficit.”

President Donald Trump’s trade war with China has resulted in Chinese tariffs on Alaska seafood exported to that country, and American tariffs on processed Alaska seafood products imported from China.

Read the full story at the Juneau Empire

Tariffs set to take toll on Alaska seafood exports and imports

August 30, 2018 — More seafood tariffs in Trump’s trade war with China are hitting Alaska coming and going.

On July 6, the first 25 percent tax went into effect on more than 170 U.S. seafood products going to China. On Aug. 23 more items were added to the list, including fishmeal from Alaska.

“As of right now, nearly every species and product from Alaska is on that list of tariffs,” said Garrett Evridge, a fisheries economist with the McDowell Group.

Alaska produces more than 70,000 metric tons of fishmeal per year (about 155 million pounds), mostly from pollock trimmings, with salmon a distant second. The pollock meal is used primarily in Chinese aquaculture production, while salmon meal goes mostly to pet food makers in the U.S.

In 2017 about $70 million worth of fishmeal from Alaska pollock was exported to China from processing plants all over the state.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce

Chinese buyers hesitant to buy Alaska seafood as U.S. weighs another round of tariffs

August 28, 2018 — In the first round of what seems to be an escalating trade dispute between the U.S. and China, tariffs have been levied on billions of dollars worth of goods in both countries. The Alaska fishing industry, which harvests roughly 60 percent of all wild seafood in the U.S., has been caught in the crosshairs of that disagreement.

But it’s not the Chinese tariffs that’s giving the industry heartburn. It’s a proposed tariff on seafood imported from China.

The Alaska seafood industry has a unique relationship with China. Nearly $1 billion worth of Alaska seafood was exported into the country in 2017, but that’s just the first step in a global supply chain.

“So much of our exports to China are reprocessed and re-exported,” Garrett Everidge, a fisheries economist with the McDowell Group, said.

Everidge explains that after those fish are reprocessed, they’re exported into markets around the world, including the U.S. Although, it’s hard to discern from trade data just how much winds back up in the U.S. market.

China kept its relationship with the Alaska seafood industry in mind when it levied a 25 percent tariff on U.S. seafood earlier this summer.

Read the full story at Alaska Public Media

US senator from Alaska speaks out against Trump tariffs

August 27, 2018 — If the Trump administration is serious about putting “America First,” then it must consider what the proposed 25 percent tariff on Chinese products will do to the Alaskan seafood industry. That was the message U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan delivered last week at a public hearing held by the U.S. International Trade Commission.

The Alaska Republican testified his state is currently caught in the crossfire as the world’s two largest economies consider hiking levies on goods imported from each other.

Sullivan said nearly USD 1 billion (EUR 859.4 million) in U.S. seafood ultimately destined for American consumers is being targeted by these tariffs. That’s because frozen fish, after it’s initially processed in the States, is sent to China to be filleted because it is more cost-effective. Most of that is caught by Alaskan fishermen.

Sullivan likened the fish to an American car made in the U.S. by local workers, only to have the final detailing performed in China before its sent back to dealerships here. The Trump administration wouldn’t consider increasing tariffs on those automobiles, Sullivan said.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

 

Seafood marketing group says fish meal included in tariff changes, calls for comments

August 27, 2018 — Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute recently received clarification about tariff changes, which went into effect on July 6, for Alaska seafood products going into the Chinese domestic market, an organization spokesperson said.

The public-private marketing organization promotes Alaska’s seafood industry.

“We previously thought that fish meal would not be included and we now know that fish meal products will be included in those proposed tariff increases from China,” communications director Jeremy Woodrow said.

Woodrow says $69 million in fish meal products — mostly used in animal feed — were exported to China last year.

Woodrow said one of the largest generators of fishmeal is the Alaska pollock industry.

The fishmeal market is important to Alaska because it ensures full utilization of seafood and helps generate revenue.

“The more that you can get out of the fish, the more everybody benefits,” Woodrow said. “That’s right down to the fishermen, to the processors, as well as the communities.”

Many fishing communities rely on a variety of fish taxes.

Read the full story at KTOO

 

For small boat fishermen in Alaska, the business can be boom or bust

August 23, 2018 — The Alaskan seafood industry is one of the many industries with its eyes on the back-and-forth between the U.S. and China. Seafood was one of the U.S. exports to get slapped with a retaliatory tariff from China, and that’s an issue for Alaska seafood producers because a lot of their seafood exports are sent there.

But in this installment of our on-going series My Economy, we’re looking beyond the news headlines to see how people are actually doing. And there are a variety of things that might be on an Alaskan fisherman’s mind right now, as fisherman Hannah Heimbuch describes from Homer, Alaska.

My name is Hannah Heimbuch. I’m a commercial fisherman from Homer, Alaska. My brother and I are drift gillnetters. We fish for sockeye salmon. We grew up deckhanding with our dad on his boat in a couple different areas in Alaska. And two years ago we decided to invest in our own operation. You know we’re in our early 30s and kind of looked at each other and were like, well, I guess we’re in this together.

Probably our biggest annual investment is our boat payment. That runs about $11,000. We also have permit payments, that’s another $5,000. And then after that you have the basic maintenance. You know we spend a few thousand dollars upgrading. So we have a boat that’s in tip top shape, but we needed to make more than $20,000 to breakeven this year. We did not come close to that.

Read the full story at the Marketplace

NFI testifies against proposed tariffs against China

August 23, 2018 — The National Fisheries Institute testified before the United States Trade Representative on 22 August in strong opposition to new tariffs proposed by the Trump Administration on Chinese goods.

The tariffs, which could be either 10 or 25 percent, would impact USD 200 billion (EUR 172 billion) in goods sourced annually from China. Robert DeHaan, representing NFI, said the tariffs would harm the seafood industry in the United States.

“USTR’s proposal will punish American fishermen and the communities that rely on them by making their products more expensive for American families to eat,” said DeHaan. “Of the [USD 2.7 billion (EUR 2.32 billion)] in annual seafood shipments subject to this proposal, an estimated [USD 950 million (EUR 819 million)] – more than a third – comes from an American fisherman – primarily an Alaska fisherman – harvesting in U.S. waters in a U.S.-flag vessel using a U.S. crew.”

The Trump Administration’s stated goal for the tariffs – making China respect its obligations regarding intellectual property rights – don’t line up with tariffs on seafood, added DeHaan.

“How punishing these harvesters – and these businesses for ‘Buying American’ – will convince China to respect its obligations regarding intellectual property rights and technology transfers is difficult to fathom,” he said. “Cutting fish is not an intellectual property secret.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source