April 15, 2026 — U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said it will launch the first phase of its tariff refund process on 20 April.
CBP’s latest message said it will initiate the first phase of the “Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries (CAPE)” tool in its “Automated Commercial Environment Secure Data Portal (ACE Portal).” The agency said CAPE will simplify duty refunds by giving businesses an electronic path to submit tariff refunds.
February 24, 2026 — The U.S. Supreme Court struck down President Donald Trump’s International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) tariffs, setting up thousands of companies for a refund, but trade lawyers predict it will likely be months before importers see the money.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) sent out a communication indicating as of 12 a.m. Eastern Standard Time on 24 February it stopped collecting duties related to seven different executive orders issued by Trump, all of which fell under the IEEPA. Even though the tariffs have ceased, acquiring a refund could take several months, according to trade lawyers contacted by SeafoodSource.
December 12, 2025 — U.S. seafood import firms Mark Foods and Bristol Seafood have filed lawsuits over U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff program, following the lead of fellow seafood companies Netuno USA and Bumble Bee.
New York City, New York, U.S.A.-based Mark Foods and Portland, Maine, U.S.A.-based Bristol Seafood filed separate lawsuits against the U.S. government, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott in the U.S. Court of International Trade.
August 26, 2025 — An official in the U.S. state of Louisiana has renewed his calls for there to be a national inspection fee on imported seafood in the wake of recalls of frozen shrimp contaminated by radiation.
On 14 August, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that U.S. Customs and Border Protection had detected a radioactive isotope called Caesium-137 (Cs-137) in shipping containers at the ports of Los Angeles, Houston, Savannah, and Miami.
April 7, 2025 — A bulletin issued by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) providing additional guidance on U.S. President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs has revealed importers have until 27 May to bring goods onshore to avoid additional fees – and that U.S.-origin seafood will be given a break on tariffed value when re-imported.
Trump issued sweeping tariffs hitting virtually every country on 2 April – a move that will affect billions of dollars of seafood imports. The U.S. imports far more seafood than it produces; according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the country imported USD 25.3 billion (EUR 23.1 billion) worth of seafood products in 2023, resulting in a trade deficit of USD 20.3 billion (EUR 18.6 billion).
July 9, 2023 — U.S. Customs and Border Protection is too slow in passing on information about potential illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing imports, making it difficult for NOAA Fisheries to conduct inspections, according to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report.
NOAA Fisheries manages four separate programs designed to stop the import of IUU products, but it cooperates regularly with CBP and other agencies to target potential IUU products being shipped into the United States. In 2019, for example, CBP, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and NOAA Fisheries worked together to discover that 32 Spanish companies were mislabeling albacore tuna as bonito to avoid higher tariffs. Through that investigation, CBP was able to recover USD 600,000 (EUR 550,110) in lost tariff revenue.
June 13, 2023 — U.S. Customs and Border Protection plans to redistribute USD 2,598,890 (EUR 2,417,871) collected from antidumping and countervailing duties on imported seafood products to domestic producers in the 2023 fiscal year.
The vast majority of the collected funds came from crawfish tail meat imported from China, which accounted for USD 2.3 million (EUR 2.1 million). Vietnamese frozen fish fillets were the other major contributor, accounting for USD 302,754 (EUR 281,676). CBP also collected a total of USD 3,270 (EUR 3,042) for frozen warmwater shrimp and prawns imported from Ecuador, Brazil, India, and Thailand.
September 15, 2021 — The U.S. government accused the operators and clients of a dead-end rail line in New Brunswick, Canada, used in transporting Alaska pollock to the U.S. East Coast, of engaging in “a calculated and secret scheme” to escape the restrictions of the Jones Act, which requires all domestically-caught seafood to be transported via vessels built in the United States with U.S. materials.
The filing in a U.S. District Court in Alaska on 14 September came in response to a lawsuit from American Seafoods subsidiary Alaska Reefer Management (ARM) and the company that operates the New Brunswick facility, Lineage Logistics subsidiary Kloosterboer International Forwarding (KIF), challenging approximately USD 350 million (EUR 294.3 million) in fines issued by U.S. Customs and Border Protection against them and their contracted transportation partners. The suit was filed on 2 September.
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August 4, 2021 — A Fijian commercial fishing vessel has received a withhold release order from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which claims forced labor may have been employed onboard the longliner.
The order requires all U.S. agencies to detain tuna and other seafood harvested by the Hangton No. 112, which is owned and operated by Suva, Fiji-based Hangton Pacific Co.
March 26, 2021 — The Southern Shrimp Alliance (SSA) has come out in support of U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s (CPB) new directorate to make forced labor a priority trade issue, while simultaneously opposing the recommendations of the Forced Labor Working Group of the Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee (CCOAP).
The working group is an advisory group consisting of private businesses and non-governmental organizations that aim to offer clarity and aid to CBP in its efforts to regulate U.S. imports.