Tag Archives: trade war
Trade war, Covid and now Ukraine invasion eat into Alaska seafood sales
First a trade war, then a battle against an infectious virus and now a real war are all affecting Alaska seafood exports. Shipments to China fell from as high as 30% of Alaska’s total seafood export value in the 2010s to 20% in 2020. “The U.S.-China trade war has displaced $500 million of Alaska seafood,” And though people bought more seafood to prepare at home during the COVID-19 pandemic, sales to restaurants and food services fell by 70%, Woodrow said. The food service market “still hasn’t fully recovered.” The Alaska product at risk in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is pink salmon roe. Eastern Europe is a major buyer of the product, he said. “It’s a regional preference.” Alaska in 2021 shipped to Ukraine about $20 million of pink salmon roe,,, >click to read< 11:37
Chinese buyers snap up Maine’s lobster haul
Undeterred by biting winds as the temperature hovers around freezing, Maine’s lobstermen haul their traps out of their pickup trucks and onto their boats. It is shortly after dawn in the coastal town of Ogunquit, the start of another working day that will last about 12 hours. The tourists have gone and the “summer folk” have fled to the warmer climes of Florida. In Ogunquit’s Perkins Cove, a red icebreaker has been readied for the winter months, when it will make sure the lobstermen can reach lucrative fishing grounds in the Atlantic. >click to read< 07:14
A “heavy mental impact” – Tasmania’s rock lobster industry suffers in trade war
Beijing cancelled the China Australia strategic economic dialogue this week, effectively ending trade relations between the two countries. For Tasmania’s rock lobster fishers this trade war is real and destroying their livelihoods and businesses in less than 12 months. Lobster fisher Kane Ebel said there was a “heavy mental impact” to the trade war. “When you get out of bed in the morning and you’ve got big debts on your boat and your house and effectively can’t go to work, it’s got to take a toll,” he told Sky News. >click to watch< 18:48
Australian Lobster Sector Claws Back Trade After China Ban
Australia’s rock lobster exports are worth half a billion US dollars a year — and in normal times, 94 percent of them go to China. But all that changed a few weeks ago, when Beijing imposed a near-total import ban on lobster, part of a broader politically charged “shadow trade war”. “It has affected us drastically,” third-generation fisherman Fedele Camarda told AFP. “Our income has been reduced considerably.”,,, local authorities recently changed legislation to allow commercial rock lobster fishers to sell large quantities from the back of their boats,,, >click to read< 10:40
Lobsters Are A Prawn In The Trade Wars
American lobster and lobster fishers got caught in a trade war being fought on multiple fronts. The United States is battling China on one major front and the European Union (EU) on another, but as is typical in trade wars, it’s lobster production in another country that’s winning the war. In this case, Canada. If that weren’t enough, tariffs are the root cause of the trade war, but not in the way you might think. China’s tariffs on U.S. lobsters are in retaliation for President Trump’s China tariffs over intellectual property. The EU didn’t raise its tariffs on U.S. lobster, but rather lowered them on Canadian ones as part of their free trade agreement. In other words, U.S. lobsters were never meant to be the target of either Chinese or EU,,, How the lobster trade war started isn’t nearly as interesting as the efforts to stop it. >click to read< 10:28
Despite tariff impacts, Maine lobster market remains robust
Just over eight months since the start of a trade war between China and the United States, the Maine lobster industry is still coping with the affects of a 25 percent tariff on their goods.,,, The market, which had seen explosive growth in the past few years, suddenly dried up overnight, for reasons completely out of the hands of Maine companies shipping live lobsters to China. Even with the challenges, however, companies that focused on live lobster shipments have managed to make up ground by re-focusing efforts in other areas. >click to read<13:44
China’s fish
The national seafood media was Monday atwitter with speculation China might impose tariffs on American seafood, and Alaska Commissioner of Commerce Mike Navarre was trying to spin the state’s proposed liquified natural gas (LNG) project as some sort of shelter against a looming U.S.-China trade war. “For now, China appears to be leaving Alaska seafood alone,” added reporter Liz Raines. There was no “appears” about it.,, Why? Because China – sometimes with the help of North Korean serfs – has turned Alaska fish into a moneymaker for China. >click to read< 14:16
