President Trump told the USDA to provide trade war relief to U.S. lobster fishermen and producers and threatened retaliatory tariffs on seafood from China if Beijing fails to buy massive amounts of U.S. food, agricultural, and seafood products this year. “The lobster industry is a crown jewel of America’s seafood industry,” said Trump in a memorandum Wednesday that vowed to mitigate the effects of the Sino-U.S. trade war on producers.
China was a major market for U.S. lobster exports, but the seafood faces tariffs as high as 37 percent due to the trade war. Maine accounts for roughly 80 percent of the U.S. catch. Canadian lobsters, which are not part of the trade war, have supplanted U.S. lobsters in China, although China has offered exemptions from tariffs for U.S. lobster.
“At this time, it remains unclear to what extent China’s exclusions from its retaliatory tariffs will result in increased exports of United States lobster,” wrote Trump in the memo. He directed Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue to provide assistance to the industry, without specifying the type of aid. The president also instructed U.S. trade representative Robert Lighthizer to monitor the lobster trade and impose reciprocal tariffs if China is not meeting its commitments on seafood under the “phase one” trade deal.
In addition, Trump asked for a U.S. International Trade Commission report on the impact on the lobster industry of a free trade agreement between Canada and the EU. U.S. lobster sales to the EU “appear to have been significantly and negatively impacted,” he said.
The “phase one” agreement calls on China to purchase an average of $40 billion worth of U.S. food, agricultural, and seafood products this year and in 2021. Exports to China have run at a slow pace this year. Lighthizer said last week that he expects a blizzard of sales in the closing months of the year to enable China to reach its trade goals.
To read the memorandum on lobster support, click here.