Saving Seafood

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

Revised NAFTA agreement between US and Mexico may leave Canada behind

August 28, 2018 — The United States and Mexico have come to a preliminary agreement to revise the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA),

The agreement, which does not yet include Canada, is expected to be finalized within days, according to U.S. President Donald Trump. It includes modest changes to the trade accord, which was put in place in 1994 as a means to lower tariffs and other trade barriers between the three countries.

“We’re very excited about this agreement,” U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said in an interview with CNBC. “We think it is going to lead to more trade, not less trade.”

Changes to the accord include modifications to regulations affecting the automobile, energy, and telecommunications industries, as well as a tightening of intellectual property protections. The agreement, which extends NAFTA for 16 years, also includes a sunset clause that requires the U.S., Mexico, and Canada to ratify the deal every six years.

However, an agreement that does not involve Canada is likely to face a legal challenge, according to The New York Times.

“[NAFTA] is a trilateral agreement. It requires legislation and a change to NAFTA requires legislation,” said U.S. Senator Patrick J. Toomey [R-Pennsylvania]. “I’ve told them any change has to go through Congress. There is not necessarily complete agreement about that.”

Trump will also likely face opposition from Congress, which only granted his administration authority to renegotiate NAFTA as a trilateral deal.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

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

Will Louisiana’s shrimpers strike? ‘It’s a last resort’

August 28, 2018 — Acy Cooper bought his first shrimping vessel, an old wooden flatboat, when he was 15.

Cooper followed his father and grandfather before him into the rich gumbo Gulf of Mexico waters from the fishing community of Venice on the coast of southern Louisiana.

Today Cooper and his two sons and son-in-law operate two Laffite skiffs — one 35-footer and one 30-footer — docked in the same community for another generation.

But although many American business owners are bracing for potential negative impacts of a trade war triggered by President Donald Trump’s tariffs, Cooper and his fellow shrimpers are pleading for such protections as foreign producers dump shrimp in the U.S. and cratering prices in the process.

In fact, earlier this month, about 200 members of the Louisiana Shrimpers Association, of which Cooper is president, threatened to go on strike without some action either from the Gulf Coast processors who buy their shrimp or from the president in the forms of tariffs or quotas.

“We were getting $1 a pound in the 1980s; now we’re getting 55 cents,” Cooper said as he prepared to spend another night on his boat casting his skimmer nets during the white shrimp season that began in August. “(Striking) is a last resort, but we have to show the processors we’re not going to work for nothing. Our communities are dying.”

During the shrimpers’ meeting in Houma one yelled, according to a nola.com report, “How many heard (Trump) say ‘make America great again’? Make shrimping great again!”

Read the full story at the Monroe News Star

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

 

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

The modern lobster trap was almost a model for Trump’s border wall. Its inventor is dead at 88.

August 22, 2018 — The ocean floor off the coast of New England is dotted with rectangular boxes split into two compartments — a “kitchen,” where lobsters are lured into the trap, and a “parlor,” where the crustaceans remain before they’re hauled up, rubber bands slipped over their menacing claws. Along with the multicolored buoys that mark their location, these underwater boxes are the chief emblems of the hard-knock marine endeavor that supplies the Atlantic delicacy.

Once rendered in wood, lobster traps are now mostly fashioned out of welded wire mesh, thanks to a Massachusetts man, James Knott Sr., who died last week of natural causes, according to the company he founded, Riverdale Mills Corp. He was 88.

He was acclaimed by the company as a “profoundly influential innovator, whose products help millions of people.”

Most who enjoy a buttered lobster tail are benefiting from Knott’s creation. Aquamesh, the wire mesh fabric he invented, is used for 85 percent of lobster traps in North America, the company said. In a testament to its broad applications, a variant of the welded wire almost became an option for President Trump’s border wall, funding for which remains in limbo.

Read the full story at The Washington Post

‘Our killer whales aren’t doing well:’ Lawsuit aims to protect struggling orcas

August 20, 2018 — Southern Resident Killer Whales are endangered and in decline.

Thursday a national environmental group filed a lawsuit against the Trump Administration. According to the suit, the National Marine Fisheries Service has failed to protect the winter habit of the Orcas.

“Our killer whales aren’t doing well,” said Sarah Yhlemann, a senior attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity who filed the lawsuit.

For 17 days a grieving mother Orca carried her dead calf more than 1,000 miles through the waters of the Salish Sea. An act of grief that environmentalist claim highlights the need to help the troubled Orcas.

“We know that protecting the whales themselves is absolutely important, but protecting their habit is really important too,” said Yhlemann.

The suit says NOAA has failed to act on a 2014 petition that includes expanding habitat protections to the Orcas’ winter foraging and migration areas off the coasts of Washington, Oregon and California.

“Right now their full habitat is not protected for the winter and travel down the coast, they don’t have habit protections,” said Yhlemann.

The lawsuit is asking for what the law requires for endangered species: to protect the entire habit of the Southern Resident killers whales.

The animals were listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act in 2005, after the center sued to get the status. The following year, the fisheries service designated the inland waters of Washington state as critical habitat. The designation means federal agencies must ensure that activities they pay for, permit or carry out do not harm the habitat.

Read the full story at KOMO News

U.S., China Plot Road Map to Resolve Trade Dispute by November

August 20, 2018 — Chinese and U.S. negotiators are mapping out talks to try to end their trade standoff ahead of planned meetings between President Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping at multilateral summits in November, said officials in both nations.

The planning represents an effort on both sides to keep a deepening trade dispute—which already has involved tariffs on billions of dollars of goods and could target hundreds of billions of dollars more—from torpedoing the U.S.-China relationship and shaking global markets.

Scheduled midlevel talks in Washington next week, which both sides announced on Thursday, will pave the way for November. A nine-member delegation from Beijing, led by Vice Commerce Minister Wang Shouwen, will meet with U.S. officials led by the Treasury undersecretary, David Malpass, on Aug. 22-23.

The negotiations are aimed at finding a way for both sides to address the trade disputes, the officials said, and could lead to more rounds of talks.

The talks represent a clear move by Beijing to get relations with Washington back on track that were cordial early in the Trump presidency and involved coordination to rein in North Korea. Those relations have soured, especially after Mr. Trump’s initial tariffs on Chinese imports, which he said were designed to punish Beijing for alleged intellectual-property violations and technology theft. The resulting tit-for-tat of trade threats and retaliation has hit China’s currency and stock markets.

Read the full story at The Wall Street Journal

Trade wars forcing Canadian seafood businesses to make tough decisions

August 17, 2018 — American-initiated tariffs are impacting Canadian seafood businesses in unexpected ways.

The growing trade war between the United States and its neighbor to the north began with a 25 percent surcharge on steel and aluminum initiated in May by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump.

In reaction, Ottawa used the symbolism of Canada Day to launch CAD 16.6 billion (USD 12.6 billion, EUR 10.8 billion) in retaliatory tariffs strategically targeted to products like orange juice, yogurt, coffee, soya sauce, mayonnaise, and bourbon, which are produced in the home districts of key Republican allies of President Trump.

As a result of this, Galen G. Weston, CEO of Loblaw Companies, Canada’s largest food retailer, believes the trade war may result in higher prices for retail goods sold in Canada.

“We see a very strong possibility of an accelerating retail price inflation in the market,” Weston said at a recent press conference. On the upside, he added, “We don’t think it’s going to be meaningful [or] super significant, but it certainly will be higher than what it is today.”

Krishen Rangasamy, an economist with the National Bank of Canada, agreed the Canadian tariffs won’t have an overly significant impact on consumer prices. He thinks importers are unlikely to pass on higher prices and those that do will have minimal impact on the consumer price index, around 0.01 percent. However, Karl Littler, a representative of the Retail Council of Canada, suggested in the Financial Post that already-thin retail margins will mean prices have to rise, but not by the full 10 percent Canadian tariff of targeted goods.

Read the full story at Seafood Source