September 22, 2025 — The scallop market in the US has faced continued challenges in 2025. Low domestic landings continue providing upward pricing pressure, while potentially constrained availability from Canada adds to tight North American supply. A similar scenario played out in 2024, when many market participants turned to Japanese product as a quality substitute for domestic shortfalls.
US, Canadian retailers slash prices to entice anxious shoppers
August 26, 2025 — Retailers in both the U.S. and Canada have implemented price drops in order to entice shoppers, many of whom are seeking value wherever they can find it amid continued global trade uncertainty.
Bentonville, Arkansas, U.S.A.-based retail giant Walmart rolled back prices on 7,400 items in the second quarter of its 2026 fiscal year, which is 2,000 more than the same period last year, per Supermarket News.
Newly implemented tariffs not altering Norway’s seafood marketing strategies for the US
August 15, 2025 — The U.S. started out 2025 as the top buyer of Norwegian seafood but fell to third place behind Poland and China in July, according to the latest figures from the Norwegian Seafood Council (NSC).
NSC Communications Director Martin Skaug told SeafoodSource that while the new tariffs levied by the U.S. on all Norwegian goods might have contributed a bit to July’s shakeup, the NSC is primarily attributing it to the massive volume growth of farmed salmon – both from Norway and other markets this year. Poland’s ascension up the rankings can, therefore, be attributed to the fact it is a country that heavily processes and redistributes salmon to other markets.
A record catch of krill near Antarctica could trigger an unprecedented end to fishing season
July 29, 2025 — Trawling near Antarctica for krill — a crustacean central to the diet of whales and a critical buffer to global warming — has surged to a record and is fast approaching a never before reached seasonal catch limit that would trigger the unprecedented early closure of the remote fishery, The Associated Press has learned.
The fishing boom follows the failure last year of the U.S., Russia, China and two dozen other governments to approve a new management plan that would have mandated spreading out the area in which krill can be caught and creating a California-sized reserve along the environmentally sensitive Antarctic Peninsula.
In the first seven months of the 2024-25 season, krill fishing in Antarctica reached 518,568 tons, about 84% of the 620,000-ton limit that, once reached, will force the fishery to automatically close. In one hot spot, the catch through June 30 was nearly 60% higher than all of last year’s haul, according to a report from the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, or CCAMLR, the international organization that manages the world’s southernmost fishery.
At U.N. Conference, Countries Inch Toward Ocean Protection Goal
June 16, 2024 — Remote coral atolls in the Caribbean. Habitat for threatened sharks and rays around a Tanzanian island in the Indian Ocean. And 900,000 square kilometers of the Pacific Ocean around French Polynesia.
These are some of the millions of acres of water now set aside as part of an international goal to protect 30 percent of the ocean by 2030. More than 20 new marine protected areas were announced at the third United Nations Ocean Conference, which ended on Friday in France.
Countries and territories pledging new areas included Chile; Colombia; French Polynesia; Portugal; Samoa; Sao Tome and Principe; the Solomon Islands; Tanzania; and Vanuatu.
“Protecting the ocean is beginning to become fashionable,” said Sylvia Earle, a marine biologist and oceanographer who served as chief scientist of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the 1990s, at an event celebrating a network of protected areas around the Azores.
The new designations come at a time when the United States, which sent only two observers to the conference, has moved to reopen the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument to commercial fishing. The country is also seeking to unilaterally authorize mining of the seafloor in international waters.
France, which hosted the conference with Costa Rica, pushed for a moratorium on deep sea mining, with four new countries pledging their support this week, bringing the total to 37 countries.
Shipping rates continue to rise as global economic headwinds mount
June 10, 2025 — Global shipping rates are rising, especially on routes between the U.S. and China, as the nations’ trade war continues and U.S. courts consider the legality of President Donald Trump’s tariff program.
Shipping rate indexing and analysis firm Xeneta has reported a continued surge in spot rates between East Asia and the U.S., significantly driving up prices for importers.
“A lesser-of-two-evils scenario” – Trade law experts respond to US-China tariff pause
May 22, 2025 — Though the U.S.-China tariff pause has provided U.S. import businesses with a reprieve, many are still struggling to create long-term growth strategies in the current environment, experts say.
Reed Smith Global Regulatory Enforcement Group Chair Michael Lowell told SeafoodSource that the current situation is “just a lesser-of-two-evils scenario.”
US, China agreement on tariffs encourages some, but others aren’t celebrating yet
May 13, 2025 — The U.S. and China’s recent agreement to reduce tariffs has garnered mixed reactions from the seafood and retail industries.
In a joint statement, both the U.S. and China agreed to modify duties the two countries had placed on goods from the other country on 12 May for 90 days. Effective 14 May, both countries will reduce tariff rates by 115 percent as the two continue discussions about economic and trade relations.
US, China agree to 90-day pause on high tariffs
May 12, 2025 — The U.S. and China released a joint statement on 12 May indicating the two countries would suspend most tariffs for 90 days and agree to continue discussions about their economic and trade relations.
In a joint statement, the U.S. agreed to modify its duties on China, effectively reducing tariffs on Chinese goods to 30 percent by 14 May. In return, China will also suspend its tariffs, reducing the tariff rate to 10 percent as of 14 May.
How to Prevent Conflict Over an Increasingly Scarce Resource
July 12, 2024 — In 2012, British and French scallop fishers clashed in a series of violent encounters, dubbed the “great scallop war” in the press. The conflict did not escalate beyond rammed boats and thrown rocks, but it heightened tensions between the two governments, and when Brexit went into effect in 2020, a majority of French fishers were banned from operating in British territorial waters. This year, after the United Kingdom banned bottom trawling to protect fragile marine habitats, the French government protested vehemently and threatened to respond with punitive trade measures. Clashes are happening in other parts of the world, too. In 2022, when a U.S. Coast Guard cutter approached to inspect a Chinese squid vessel near Ecuador—following established legal protocols—the Chinese ship used aggressive maneuvers to avoid being boarded. In the meantime, dozens of other vessels fled without being inspected.
In a world consumed with wars in Ukraine and the Middle East—and a potential conflict over Taiwan—these incidents may seem insignificant. But although they may fly under the radar, disputes over fisheries have the potential to turn into larger conflicts and to exacerbate existing ones, just as disputes over oil, water, and grain have done in the past. Fisheries are finite natural resources that provide sustenance to billions of people; seafood constitutes nearly one-fifth of global consumption of animal protein. Its products are among the world’s most highly traded food commodities. The fisheries sector employs hundreds of millions of people and fuels the economies of many developing countries and small island states. And the industry already faces growing pressure as overfishing, poor management, and climate change degrade fish stocks across the planet. Rising ocean temperatures alone are expected to push nearly one in four local fish populations to cross an international boundary in the coming decade, reshuffling access to this critical resource and incentivizing risky illegal fishing and labor abuse in the sector. It is not hard to imagine how, in this context, a fish-related fight could spiral.
In fact, skirmishes are already happening with alarming frequency. Fights over fish are not new: during the Cold War, for instance, countries that were otherwise aligned clashed frequently over fisheries. In 1979, Canada seized U.S. fishing boats in a dispute about albacore tuna, and the Cod Wars of the 1970s saw Iceland and the United Kingdom clash over fishing rights in the North Atlantic. But the frequency of confrontation over fishery resources has increased 20-fold since 1970, and the rapid growth of fishing fleets able to travel to distant waters has further raised the risk of serious clashes.
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