Saving Seafood

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

FLORIDA: China Trade War Hits Keys Lobster Fishermen

July 9, 2018 — On a commercial fishing dock outside of Marathon, a television sat atop a makeshift table allowing a small crew of workers to watch the latest World Cup soccer match while repairing lobster traps and painting buoys.

With lobster season a few weeks away, thousands of traps were waiting to be loaded on boats and dropped in the waters up and down the Florida Keys.

“Gooooooal!,” the play-by-play announcer suddenly blared in Spanish, as Sweden scored the second of three goals on Mexico. The largely Mexican crew stared at the television in disbelief.

Boat captain Gary Nichols wasn’t paying much attention to the game. He was trying to cope with another world event – the growing U.S. trade war with China.

“It’s starting to get a little scary,” said Nichols, a commercial fisherman in the Keys for more than 30 years.

On Friday, the United States imposed $34 billion in tariffs on a variety of Chinese products, including computers, dishwashers and medical devices.

In return, China immediately fired back with $34 billion in tariffs on U.S. goods, such as pork, poultry, soybeans, and corn. And tucked into the list of 545 products getting slapped with a 25 percent tariff by China were Florida lobsters.

“I was really praying that wasn’t going to occur,” Nichols said. “And at this moment I don’t know what is going to happen, we’re all just in limbo.”

Read the full story at CBS Miami

WALL STREET JOURNAL: Trump Boils Maine Lobstermen

July 9, 2018 — Donald Trump has upended global trade relationships, promising that temporary disruption will end in better terms for American businesses. Tell that to the Maine lobster industry that his policies are putting at a major disadvantage in Europe and China.

These should be halcyon days in lobstertown. Maine harvests more lobster than any other U.S. state or Canadian province. Last year it landed nearly 111 million pounds—its fourth-largest annual haul—which it sold for $450 million. The lobster industry accounts for 2% of Maine’s economy.

And China represents a hungry new market. The post-molt lobsters Maine harvests from July through November have softer shells than Canadian lobsters, so they’re lower quality. But they also sell for several dollars less a pound. In the price-sensitive Chinese market, that has given the U.S. industry a competitive advantage over its Canadian counterparts. In 2017 the U.S. exported more than $137 million in lobsters to China, up from $52 million in 2015.

Yet Mr. Trump’s unilateral tariffs are about to erode the price advantage of American lobsters. After the U.S. announced on June 15 plans to impose a 25% tariff on $50 billion in Chinese goods, Beijing retaliated with a new 25% tariff on American seafood, farm products and autos, effective July 6. That’s on top of the 10% to 15% tariffs China already imposes on U.S. and Canadian lobster.

Read the full opinion piece at the Wall Street Journal 

What they’re saying: Local industries react to Trump’s trade war

July 9, 2018 — Local agricultural industries caught in the crossfire of President Trump’s trade disputes with some of the country’s biggest trading partners are increasingly worried that they will suffer from retaliatory tariffs on American goods.

Why it matters: From Florida to Wisconsin to Washington state, Trump risks threatening the very industries he pledged to protect on the campaign trail — and his tariffs could mean a brutal blow for the economy in states that he won in 2016.

What they’re saying:

In the Florida Keys, commercial fishermen are worried about the retaliatory tariffs China slapped Friday on 545 U.S. products, which target Florida lobster:

“At this moment I don’t know what is going to happen, we’re all just in limbo. We’ve been very fortunate over the last several years with the Chinese market.” — Gary Nichols, a lobster fisherman who voted for Trump, told CBS Miami.

Washington’s seed industry could face issues, too. Dave Armstrong, the CEO of Sakata Seed Company, told the Skagit Valley Herald that the company’s top customers are in Asia, Europe, Canada, and Mexico — and a prolonged trade war could cause the company to consider moving its operations elsewhere.

“It’s a global hub of seed movement. The actions being taken and threatened would absolutely add complexity and barriers to our ability to move seed in and out of the U.S.” — Dave Armstrong, the CEO of Sakata Seed Company

Read the full story at Axios

Lobsters caught in global tariff tit-for-tat

July 9, 2018 — Veteran lobsterman Billy Mahoney is already feeling the pinch – and not from the claws of his catch.

Mahoney sells his lobsters to a dealer in Massachusetts who, in turn, sells most of the product to an increasingly lobster-hungry China. The proposed tariffs between the U.S. and the world’s second-largest economy have already lowered the price Mahoney gets for his lobsters by 50 cents a pound.

If the tariffs imposed imposed Friday by the Trump administration hit as hard as expected, Mahoney predicts, “All hell is going to break loose as far as the price.” What’s more, China will turn to Canada for New England’s ocean delicacy, he says.

A Harvard graduate who sets out from Nahant, Mahoney has been trapping Homarus americanus for more than 40 years. At 70, he says he is close to retirement, but he has a brother in the business as well as four cousins who are bound to suffer if the tariffs linger.

Maine and Massachusetts together landed almost $700 million worth of lobster last year, 94 percent of the nation’s total. At the same time, exports from Maine to China increased more than 30 percent, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

But South Shore lobstermen, already hit hard by extended seasonal closures of their fishing grounds, might largely escape the latest blow to their industry.

Read the full story at The Patriot Ledger

Trade war with China may take a new victim: South Florida lobster fishermen

July 6, 2018 — First Irma, now a trade war.

Less than a year after Hurricane Irma tore through the Florida Keys, lobster fishermen are facing another hit from the trade war with China.

Tariffs set to take effect Friday threaten to bump up prices by 25 percent — an increase that could cool demand in the lucrative Chinese market, say experts.

“This is a major impact on our fishery,” said Jeff Cramer, who fishes out of Conch Key. “And just a year after we got wiped out by the worst hurricane we’ve had in recent memory.”

Before the Chinese market picked up a decade ago, the going rate for a pound of lobster was $3. Today, fishermen can get between $10 to $20 per pound from Chinese buyers, and commercial fishermen like Cramer now send up to 75 percent of their Florida spiny lobsters to China.

“The Chinese market saved the fisherman’s ass,” said Cramer.

But with the boom came a dependence: Cramer’s Chinese buyers say that retailers have no appetite for absorbing the cost of the tariff, meaning he likely will need to lower his prices or risk losing his biggest buyers when the lobster commercial fishing season opens Aug. 6.

When possible, businesses incorporate tariff costs into consumer prices. For example, steel, lumber and aluminum tariffs imposed by the Trump administration in the past year have pushed up building costs, affecting home prices as well. But margins in the lobster trade are already slim, and Cramer worries that competition from Australia and Brazil will toss Florida out of the market if prices go up.

Alaskans fret as Chinese, US tariffs go into effect

July 6, 2018 — The next phase of the Chinese-U.S. trade war kicked into effect on Friday, 6 July, as each country imposed USD 34 billion (EUR 28.9 billion) worth of tariffs on a range of goods that, on the Chinese side, include a variety of seafood products.

According to a list issued from the Ministry of Finance of the People’s Republic of China, more than 170 seafood products are subject to the new tariffs, which went into effect at 12:01 a.m. on 6 July. However, confusion remains as to exactly which products are subject to the tariffs – especially amongst those engaged in sending seafood to China for reprocessing and re-export.

That’s a big question for many involved in the seafood industry in Alaska, which relies heavily on Chinese labor to complete the difficult task of removing pinbones from much of its catch. In fact, in large part due to the seafood industry, China is Alaska’s largest trading partner, with hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of salmon, flatfish, and cod heading to China for reprocessing and re-export.

Glenn Reed, president of the Pacific Seafood Processors Association, which represents companies operating onshore processing plants for Alaska salmon, crab, and pollock, as well as Pacific cod, said there is still uncertainty on the issue.

“We’re watching the situation closely. We know we this could affect us all from fishermen, processors, support business, communities, the state, etc. We just don’t have good info at this point,” he told SeafoodSource via email. “We may not know the impact until after 6 July.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

US-China tariffs: What’s behind them, who stands to be hurt?

July 5, 2018 — President Donald Trump has boldly declared that trade wars are easy to win. He’s about to find out.

Barring a last-minute breakthrough, the Trump administration on Friday will start imposing tariffs on $34 billion in Chinese imports. And China will promptly strike back with tariffs on an equal amount of U.S. exports.

And just like that, a high-risk trade war between the world’s two biggest economies will begin — one that could quickly escalate.

“I see us running into a full collision course in a few days,” said Ashley Craig, a trade lawyer at Venable LLP. “It seems as if both sides are fairly dug in.”

Here’s a look at what’s happening this week and its likely impact.

WHAT IS THE U.S. DOING?

The White House last month announced plans to slap 25 percent tariffs on roughly 1,100 goods imported from China, worth $50 billion a year. It had originally proposed the tariffs in April, starting with 1,333 Chinese products. After receiving public feedback, the administration cut 515 imports from the blacklist and added 284 others.

Starting Friday, the U.S. will tax 818 Chinese products, worth $34 billion a year, from the original list. It won’t target the 284 additions, worth $16 billion, until it gathers further public comments.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Gloucester Daily Times