"You're tariffed."
US president Donald Trump started off the week doling out tariffs to Canada, Mexico and China -- and then pausing tariffs on Canada and Mexico after the two countries agreed to enforce border protection. What happens next? Undercurrent News' team of reporters are breaking it all down on the latest episode of Catch the Current.
Hosts Amanda Buckle and Lorin Castiglione are joined by Undercurrent News co-founder Tom Seaman, editorial director Cliff White, Americas editor Jason Huffman and head of growth and strategy Gary Morrison as they discuss where the seafood industry currently stands with Trump's tariffs and what could possibly be in the pipeline.
Listen below!
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Don't have time to listen? Find a transcript of season 1, episode 3 of Catch the Current below:
Amanda Buckle (AB): You’re listening to Catch the Current, the latest podcast from Undercurrent News, your trusted-source for seafood news, data and prices. I’m Amanda Buckle.
Lorin Castiglion (LC): And I’m Lorin Castiglione.
We love boasting about out global team at Undercurrent. We’ve got our headquarters in London and reporters all around the world. What some of you may not know is that Amanda and I are based out of New Jersey. This week we were able to host a couple of fellow staffers who are not local to the area -- Americas editor Jason Huffman and Undercurrent’s new editorial director, Cliff White.
AB: So of course we had to record a podcast together! Jason, Cliff -- welcome to Catch the Current, the most informative -- and who are we kidding, coolest -- seafood podcast in the world!
Cliff White (CW): Thanks for having us.
Jason Huffman (JH): It's good to be here.
LC: We also have one more Undercurrent expert lurking in the background -- Gary Morrison, our head of growth and strategy, as well as reporter on the lobster, crab, and shrimp markets. Man, what can’t he do.
Gary Morrison (GM): Thanks Lorin.
AB: And we also have Undercurrent co-founder Tom Seaman.
Tom Seaman (TS): Hello, good to be on the pod again.
LC: We didn’t plan it like this, but your visit is very convenient because there is so much going on with US president Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Photo Credit: Whitehouse.gov
AB: Our team of reporters have been knee-deep in the coverage. There are a lot of moving pieces here -- and things are changing every day -- so your first stop every morning should be to check UndercurrentNews.com for the latest updates, but we’re going to do our best to cover the immediate impacts here.
LC: That's right. On Saturday, Trump signed an executive order that placed 25% tariffs on products imported from Canada and Mexico, while adding another 10% to the 25% tariffs already paid for Chinese goods. Trump’s tariffs were supposed to take effect on Tuesday, Feb. 4, leaving no time for the seafood industry to prepare.
AB: But then… a twist! Snip snap, snip snap. Trump paused the tariffs on first Mexico and then Canada! The proposed tariffs are paused for at least 30 days.
I'll let you all fight over this first question: Did the seafood industry just dodge a bullet? Or did it just buy more time to prepare?
JH: I think they dodged a bullet. But we don't know until he actually permanently removes the tariffs. They're still hanging out there. He gave them 30 days, and he may come back later on and try to leverage this into something else. But will he? Given the circumstances, I feel kind of like he won't.
AB: Cliff, similar thoughts?
CW: TBD.
AB: The safest answer on a podcast.
CW: I mean, it's always TBD with Trump, right? Like, he changes his mind every day, every hour, and depends on what he ate for dinner and how his last conversation went. So, no one's safe with Trump. I think that's his biggest leverage point.
That's the art of the deal is you can always get a better deal. And his word is not as important as his swagger. And we'll see how that plays out.
He's got a lot more swagger in his first term than he did in his second.
AB: I would agree with that. We're already heading in strong. I think Lorin and I joked in the first couple of podcasts that we're going to have an endless supply of content to publish this year.
It's been nonstop since he came into office on Jan. 20.
Gary, as a market reporter, are you seeing some contacts concerned about this delay? Or are they seeing it as it's not going to be an issue?
GM: Initially, there were some people that reacted pretty swiftly. And certainly when I'm talking about Canadian crab and lobster, where they reacted with price increases pretty quickly.
But as that tariff was removed and they put a pause on it, cooler heads have prevailed. I think most people seem to think that we did dodge a bullet in the fact that if the negotiations and what was agreed upon during those conversations happened, that they would not have the tariffs imposed in the 30 days. So right now a little bit more level-headed pricing is happening.
LC: And just to play off of Gary's level-headed answer and his contacts, being cool, calm and collected -- my contacts, I think, are more like me, where we're spiraling and thinking of every possible situation that could happen. So, for example, on salmon, where the 25% tariff on Canadian farmed salmon that could push US buyers to alternative sources. And that's probably going to be from Chile or from Norway.
In a perfect world it could give more opportunity to the US salmon industry, but we produce a limited farmed product and our wild-caught harvest is highly seasonable with volumes that can't support current US demands alone.
Something else one of my contacts brought up that I think wouldn't ... sway the administration obviously, but I think it's interesting to point out, is that, for salmon especially, there's potential environmental impacts.
Canada regionally trucks all of its salmon down to the East Coast or the West Coast while Chilean products fly in the bellies of planes and then transfer to trucks and...
AB: It's spiraling, basically, is what you're saying, because I wouldn't have thought about that aspect either.
LC: Right. It's funny to chat with my contacts and we're kind of going through every different scenario. But again, it's a wait and see.
TS: To your point, Lorin, about alternatives on salmon. I mean, obviously, the main export from Europe into the US is salmon -- that's the bulk of it.
There are other products, but it's the bulk of it -- and I think, generally, the Norwegian salmon goes to Denmark, Holland; countries like that for processing. And a lot of it will come to the US that way. Some of it does come directly from Norway, but obviously, it's very high-cost processing in Norway.
Fresh salmon fillet on ice. Credit: Jukov studio/Shutterstock.com
So, if there are tariff supplies to Europe, which Trump is threatening, that could impact one of those other supply sources that you mentioned, Lorin.
And then, I think a lot of people feel that if Europe is tariffed, it's very unlikely that Norway would escape that. I'm sure it would be sort of swept up in that in some way.
But it's going to be interesting to see because, you know, Europe is not... Europe and China are not Mexico and Canada. You know, they're very, very large economies on their own rights and will be much harder to sort of push around. Which is a bit different with Canada in particular due to its incredible reliance on the US for trade. And obviously, I think the most interesting thing so far is the Chinese situation.
I'd be interested, Lorin, to hear what your contacts are saying on that in terms of that causing further inflation, particularly on cod, which is already going up in price. That 10% tariff is going to products exported from the US to China processed and coming back. It's just going on everything.
LC: China is a huge reprocessing hub, especially for groundfish. And what we've seen in the past on items like haddock, where exemptions came into play and then exclusions came into play. It was all back and forth. That caused so much price volatility. Right now, twice frozen supply is already constrained with premiums continuing to develop week after week.
In addition to the added tariff or the potential of tariffs, just put so much more pressure on the markets already.
CW: Trump's just going to look for the next thing, man. He is rapid firing announcements, executive orders.
He is the aggressor. He's always looking for the next thing to push on. And he's already mentioned the EU.
TS: And the UK. He mentioned the UK.
CW: Yeah, once it's in his head. It's just when.
AB: Now, do you want to talk about shellfish? We talked about salmon's impact, whitefish... you know what about lobster out of Canada?
JH: We already have supply issues with shellfish. Gary can talk about this as well. The prices have gone up on a number of these. The supplies of both items are limited. We're about to head into the new snow crab season.
So we're going to have some more snow crab soon. But lobster is very limited. I mean, it's not like they needed pressure to drive up prices. We're already there.
Fresh, cooked North Atlantic lobster meat. Credit: Truefoods Premium Product
GM: To Jason's point, you know, the lobster inventory here in the US right now is pretty limited. Prices have been firming.
The one thing that we did see over the last couple weeks prior to this tariff initiation was people assumed that it was coming. So they did shift some inventory into the United States from Canada in advance, but that only allowed sellers here to discount prices, which was opposite of the sentiment that we probably would have thought because carrying costs like cold storage becomes a lot more expensive here in the US than it is in Canada. So they wanted to move some of that inventory that they were holding.
And in crab, we're seeing prices firm. Inventory ... it's basically non-existent here from Canada as well. So we're seeing a shift in buying patterns.
Norway is really stepping in and buyers in the US have continued to pay higher prices, sometimes significantly higher for both red king crab and snow crab out of Norway. That season is starting to come to an end as well. Inventory is a little bit tight.
AB: Do you think that trend is going to continue since we now have a month?
GM: Yeah, diversifying suppliers. I think Tom brought it up. Canada is so dependent on the US for all their trade. I think 77% of their GDP comes from the US and they're certainly looking to diversify their customer base.
Buyers here now want to diversify their supplier base just in case things are unsettled and you can't get it from one place where it becomes more expensive.
AB: Jacob Resneck just published a really fantastic -- two pieces -- this week talking just about what NOAA's dealing with right now and how there's just so much confusion in that agency. What other things are you seeing within the industry that Trump is having an impact on that doesn't even have to deal with tariffs?
JH: Jacob's articles this week were really compelling.
One of them dealt with this regulatory freeze, the idea that maybe we could get into a position where the fisheries can't be regulated because of the limits on what can get through NOAA and the regional councils. Then there's the employment issue.
Federal employees are having to worry now about the security of their jobs and what positions that NOAA will be affected and how that will affect the commercial fisheries going forward. So those are issues.
AB: It's lot of confusion and this is getting relayed to these fishermen and these groups outside of NOAA that we don't know what's happening and that can't be good for anybody overall either to have all this confusion and chaos right now.
And that's kind of just what it feels like. It's a chaos bomb.
Photo Credit: White House
JH: It's kind of mind-blowing.
I mean, when have we had a new administration come in that put this much concern and worry into a market because of regulatory changes. Will this kind of get normal at some point?
TS: I also think there's obviously implications for the Marine Stewardship Council certification of the pollock fishery or lots of the Alaska fisheries when it relies on very robust fisheries management. And if all that's thrown out then it's going to have some knock-on effects on things like that if it's not resolved.
So that's something to watch too because the MSC requires certain levels of management that -- if potentially aren't in place -- everybody's losing their job.
So, the situation at NOAA is in flux.
AB: I just want to circle this back to Tom. You're in London. So you're the only one here not based in the US, which gives you a unique perspective as an outsider looking in. So how is this impacting Europe right now? Is this impacting Europe at all?
TS: Well, not at the minute because it's all just kind of threats so far. But the Europe stuff's all theoretical.
I agree with you Cliff, it is going to happen. But the China stuff is happening and they are obviously going to as soon as this happens with China.
They then start doing not only actual trade barriers, but they'll also start doing like they did with the Ecuadorians in Covid where they were just inspecting every containers for traces of Covid and it was all completely nonsensical. Everyone knew that but it was a trade barrier. It was kind of a flex and they are more than likely.
I've asked Lewis, our reporter in China to be on the case with this because I can see that suddenly there'll be, you know, delays on containers. They'll be detained for customs inspections because that's kind of the way it works.
Obviously, the US is very reliant on China as a reprocessing hub. They've tried to diversify to, say Vietnam, Indonesia, other countries successfully, but China is still the main hub.
And then a lot of that's coming back to the US as well. So there's kind of potential destruction, I think, on US exports to China. It remains to be seen, but this has happened in the past. And then the 10% tariff on -- at the minute -- trying to process products using US fish coming back to the US and obviously I think that will get an exemption like what happened before, but none of that's happened yet. So it's very interesting to see.
Credit: Miro Vrlik Photography / Shutterstock
CW: I wanted to ask Gary because we're having an interesting discussion and I think both of us agree that Trump's strategy here -- and it is a strategy. I mean, he laid this out, Americans voted on it. It can be really effective. He can get a lot from it. Where do you see this going from his standpoint, if you can get in Trump's head?
GM: We heard it at GSMC, you know, quite a bit that tariffs are used as policy, right? Not as a negotiating tool in foreign policy.
So it's more about foreign policy and things that he wants to benefit the US and, you know, his big thing was securing the border. And I think that's what tariffs are being used for. They're not being used as a punitive tool or as a tool to, you know, raise money to enact border security, whatever that may be, whether they already agreed upon it and have not enacted what they agreed upon or he got a little bit more, but I think it's more about border security and, you know, preventing drugs [from coming] into this country.
JH: I think the outcome was we had two of those countries with tariffs threatened against them drop, right? Or at least postpone, and then one kind of went through. Did Trump actually win or did he lose? Because those countries threatened to retaliate and then they offered him something that they had already given him and then he paused the tariffs. Is that a retreat, a surrender, or is it because the threat is still out there? Is he winning? I mean, I don't know how to view it.
And then if he won, is he encouraged to do it again with other countries? Or if he lost, does this give him a defeat? And he goes, he's got to think about it the next time. I mean, I can't say if he won, lost, or anything. I mean, that's going to be determined, right? Or what his motivation, you know, certainly was, but I'll liken it to, you know, things like accords where people are not living up to their obligations, right? So you can agree to anything that you want.
You also have to live by those obligations or contracts. And certainly in other countries, there have been entered into contracts with the U.S. that they said they've been doing something, whether that be reducing CO2 and it just doesn't happen. So if he won or lost, I can't answer that.
AB: This is what Undercurrent News is for. So Lorin, take it away.
LC: Thank you, Amanda.
So I did want to note that Undercurrent News has a single platform to traverse global trade data instantly, which will be a help to everyone. Our interactive platform provides real-time imports and export data from the world's most critical seafood markets, allowing you to track trends, identify opportunities, and make data-driven decisions. So our user-friendly tools and expert support ensure you will always have the insights you need right when you need them.
So stay ahead of the curve with the Undercurrent News trade data and all of our support staff. Thank you, Lauren, for that plug for UCN's trade data. And that plug spot could be yours.
Email podcast@ndercurrentnews.com to learn about advertising opportunities. So thank you all for joining us on the podcast today. I think it's safe to say, Lorin, that we're going to be having these guys on a lot to talk about what's going on with Trump.
LC: Keep our heads straight, for sure.
AB: This has been another Undercurrent News production.
Thanks for listening to Catch the Current, and we'll catch you back here next week.
Contact the author amanda.buckle@undercurrentnews.com
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