Saving Seafood

Green groups sue over expanded Gulf drilling

July 19, 2018 — Green groups are suing the Trump administration over its decision to expand drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

Earthjustice filed the lawsuit on Monday on behalf of three groups, the Gulf Restoration Network, the Sierra Club and the Center for Biological Diversity, against the Interior Department and Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

The suit targets a decision from the administration to open up 78 million acres of the Gulf to potential drilling.

The groups say regulators have failed to do the necessary environmental checks and are in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).

“The Gulf is one of the most productive marine regions in the United States, supporting many species of turtles, dolphins and whales as well as accounting for one third of the nation’s seafood catch every year,” said Cynthia Sarthou, executive director of the Gulf Restoration Network, in a statement.

Read the full story at The Hill

Trump’s big reorg plan gets a second and third look

July 17, 2018 — Senators this week will scrutinize the Trump administration’s extremely ambitious government reorganization plan that would amplify the Interior Department’s clout.

Some lawmakers are already applauding the general idea, though key reorganization details remain lacking, including potential costs, savings, job losses, relocations, office closures and timelines.

The Fish and Wildlife Service and NOAA Fisheries would merge within Interior under the plan. This, too, is an old idea. President Obama proposed something similar in 2012, using familiar-sounding language

“The Interior Department is in charge of salmon in fresh water, but the Commerce Department handles them in salt water,” Obama said at the time. “No business or nonprofit leader would allow this kind of duplication or unnecessary complexity in their operations. … It has to change.”

It didn’t change.

The plan would also merge the Energy Department’s applied energy offices on renewables, nuclear and fossil energy into one “Office of Energy Innovation.” The White House also wants to establish a new “Office of Energy Resources and Economic Strategy.”

House members did not mention or raise questions about the energy- and environment-related moves during last month’s Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on reorganization.

Those moves, though, will face the heat at Thursday’s hearing of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, whose members have already blasted a proposal to privatize power marketing administrations.

Read the full story at E&E News

Here’s how the trade war with China is affecting the outlook for Alaska seafood

July 17, 2018 — Trump’s trade war now includes tariffs on seafood going to and from China.

China is Alaska’s biggest seafood buyer, purchasing 54 percent of Alaska seafood exports last year valued at $1.3 billion. On July 6, a 25 percent tariff went into effect on U.S. imports to China, including all Alaska salmon, pollock, cod, herring, flatfish, dungeness crab, sablefish, geoduck clams and more.

Then on July 11 Trump added a 10 percent tariff on all seafood sent from China to the U.S.

According to market expert John Sackton of Seafoodnews.com, it includes products that are reprocessed in China and sent back for distribution in this country.

The total value of the 291 seafood products China sends to the U.S. each year is $2.75 billion. Sackton called the 10 percent tariff “a $275 million dollar direct tax on Americans.”

It will hit 70 percent of imports of frozen cod fillets. Likewise, 23 percent of all frozen salmon fillets come into the U.S. from China, including pink salmon that is reprocessed into salmon burgers and fillets.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

New tariffs could hurt tilapia’s popularity

July 17, 2018 — Tilapia’s rise to ubiquity across U.S. restaurants and seafood aisles over the past decade has been rapid. Now that the Trump administration has targeted Chinese seafood with a 10 percent tariff, its golden age may be coming to an end.

The fish, popular for its mild taste and low cost, is among the estimated $200 billion of items that could rise in price for U.S. consumers as President Donald Trump aims to erase the nation’s longstanding trade deficit. Now, importers and distributors are on high alert to see whether tilapia emerges unscathed from a late-August public comment period on the proposed tariffs.

If not, the product could become an example of how even minor cost increases can reverberate across supply chains and economies as the hospitals, nursing homes and schools that buy frozen Chinese tilapia are forced to look elsewhere for cheap protein — or pay more.

“We can’t absorb the cost of tariffs if we have to pay more for tilapia,” said Dan Fusco, President of Global Food Trading Corp., an importer and distributor of frozen fish to wholesale distributors. “We will raise the prices.”

Read the full story from Bloomberg News at the Honolulu Star Advertiser

ALASKA: Chinese delegation visits Kodiak as Trump administration issues new proposed tariffs

July 17, 2018 — A delegation from China visited Kodiak Island with the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, touring fish processing plants in Kodiak and Larsen Bay.

Right in the middle of the visit, President Donald Trump’s administration proposed more tariffs, which doesn’t bode well for Alaska’s seafood trade.

But that didn’t dampen the delegation’s enthusiasm for what Alaska has to offer.

The water is low, so Alaska Department of Fish and Game employees in Kodiak are seining for sockeye salmon at the Buskin River weir.

The Chinese delegation has come to learn about local fisheries management, said Tyler Polum, sport fisheries area management biologist.

“Sometimes when the water is low, we can’t get them to go into the trap at the weir, so we thought that it would be better to beach seine for these fish,” Polum said. “We’ll show them how we sample fish to get age, sex, and length from them.”

Among the delegation, Mingzhen Zhang says Kodiak is a stark contrast to her city.

“I live in Beijing, so the best impression for me is less pollution,” Zhang said.

China’s northern capital city of more than 20 million people is infamous for smog.

Read the full story at Alaska Public Media

Some Alaska seafood exports escape China’s retaliatory tariffs

July 13, 2018 — It appears the blowback from President Donald Trump’s trade dispute with China will fall on some but not all of Alaska’s seafood exports to the country.

The Trump administration’s 25 percent tariff on an estimated $34 billion of goods imported to the U.S. that took effect July 6 prompted Chinese leaders to respond with their own 25 percent tariff on U.S. goods headed for their country, including seafood, Alaska’s primary export.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries Director of International Affairs John Henderschedt said June 28 that seafood products destined to be reprocessed and re-exported from China will be exempt from the tariffs after agency officials discussed the issue with the U.S. Embassy there.

While a positive development for Alaska fishermen and processors, the cumulative impact the tariffs could have on the commercial fishing industry in the state is still unknown, Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute Technical Program Director Michael Kohan said in an interview.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

Reprocessed state seafood exports exempted from Chinese tariffs

July 12, 2018 — It appears the blowback from President Donald Trump’s trade dispute with China will fall on some, but not all of Alaska’s seafood exports to the country.

The Trump administration’s 25 percent tariff on an estimated $34 billion of goods imported to the U.S. that took effect July 6 prompted Chinese leaders to respond with their own 25 percent tariff on U.S. goods headed for their country, including seafood, Alaska’s primary export.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries Director of International Affairs John Henderschedt said June 28 that seafood products destined to be reprocessed and re-exported from China will be exempt from the tariffs after agency officials discussed the issue with the U.S. Embassy there.

While a positive development for Alaska fishermen and processors, the cumulative impact the tariffs could have on the commercial fishing industry in the state is still unknown, Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute Technical Program Director Michael Kohan said in an interview.

Overall, Alaska exported more than $4.9 billion of goods in 2017, of which more than $2.4 billion was seafood, according to the state Office of International Trade.

China bought $1.3 billion worth of Alaska’s exports last year, including $796 million — nearly a third — of the state’s total seafood exports.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce

 

Louisiana shrimp industry representatives welcome Trump tariffs

July 12, 2018 — Louisiana shrimp industry representatives welcomed the Trump administration’s announcement today that it will impose tariffs on Chinese seafood imports.

Members of the Louisiana Shrimp Task Force, meeting in Houma, said they are considering a push for similar 10 percent tariffs on other top countries that send shrimp to the U.S., including India, Indonesia and Vietnam.

“We need to start a meeting in Washington by contacting an associate of Donald Trump to see his availability,” Houma shrimper Barry Rogers told the panel, which advises the state Wildlife and Fisheries Commission on issues affecting the industry. “Once we would have that meeting set up with him, we’ll also need to get our congressmen. ”

Shrimpers in Terrebonne, Lafourche and across the U.S. coast have long complained that a wave of cheaper, mostly farm-raised imports has made it difficult for domestic shrimp fishermen to compete. About 90 percent of shrimp consumed in the U.S. is imported.

Read the full story at The Daily Comet

US hits back at China with more tariffs; most seafood hit with 10 percent duty

July 11, 2018 — The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump announced tariffs on USD 200 billion (EUR 170 billion) of Chinese goods on Wednesday, 11 July – the latest escalation in the ongoing trade war between the two countries.

The move will add 10 percent tariffs to a wide assortment of Chinese goods, with seafood featuring prominently. The 6,031 items included in the list published by U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer include a litany of seafood items, including many categories of shrimp, tilapia, salmon, pollock, tuna, flatfish, crab, scallops, squid, and fishmeal.

“As a result of China’s retaliation and failure to change its practices, the President has ordered USTR to begin the process of imposing tariffs of 10 percent on an additional USD 200 billion of Chinese imports. This is an appropriate response under the authority of Section 301 to obtain the elimination of China’s harmful industrial policies,” Lighthizer said in a press release. “USTR will proceed with a transparent and comprehensive public notice and comment process prior to the imposition of final tariffs, as we have for previous tariffs.”

If and when they are imposed – scheduled for 60 days from their announcement – the new tariffs will cover almost 40 percent of the USD 505 billion (EUR 430 billion) worth of products China shipped to the United States in 2017. Retaliatory tariffs recently put in place by China on USD 50 billion (EUR 42.6 billion) worth of U.S. goods equate to about 38 percent  of the USD 130 billion (EUR 111 billion) worth of goods the U.S. sent to China in 2017.

According to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. imported USD 2.7 billion (EUR 2.3 billion) of Chinese seafood in 2017, while sending USD 1.3 billion (EUR 1.1 billion) worth of seafood to China.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

China’s tariffs will hit farm states hard, spare service-heavy states

July 11, 2018 — Whether it’s Iowa soybeans or Alaskan salmon, don’t expect the tariffs China is imposing on the U.S. to fall equally. Some states are at more risk than others.

Farm and seafood-producing states are going to be hit hardest by China’s new tariffs on U.S. goods, according to an analysis by Paul Armstrong-Taylor, resident professor of international economics at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center at Nanjing University in China. States where cars and SUVs are made and shipped to China are on the hook, as well.

The Chinese government imposed $34 billion in new duties on goods exported from the U.S. last week in retaliation for the Trump administration’s round of tariffs aimed at driving better deals on trade. Economists have warned the trade war could risk jobs, industry profits and lead to higher prices for consumers.

“Agricultural states, I think, are being hit the hardest,” said Rodney Ludema, a Georgetown University professor and former senior international economist in the White House Council of Economic Advisers under President Barack Obama. The tariffs spare states “that are heavily service-dependent, like New York.”

In terms of value, some 38 percent of products on the tariff list are agricultural, including soybeans, sorghum, tobacco and meat, said Chad Bown, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. That’s bad news for farm-belt states, primarily in the Midwest.

Read the full story at USA Today