EMEA editor Neil Ramsden brings you a roundup of the main stories from the previous week.

Our most-read story last week was the news that an entity controlled by US seafood investor Jordan Mazzetta has acquired an East Coast scallops and whitefish processor based in Portland, Maine. Highwood Harbor, owned by Mazzetta, has acquired a majority stake in Nova Seafood, a seafood processing and distribution company, from Angelo Ciocca and George Branco.

The latest in this year's volatile trade picture saw the EU launch a process to impose retaliatory countermeasures on the US. Though it said it had been set to target "certain seafood" products as part of a package to tariff approximately €18 billion ($19.6bn) worth of goods, in fact, seafood was essentially absent from the list of targets.

Meanwhile, the Canadian lobster industry is facing a double whammy following the news that China will impose a 25% tariff on all Canadian seafood, effective March 20. The 25% tariff will apply to 49 seafood items from Canada, including Greenland halibut, certain crab species, lobster, coldwater shrimp and other shellfish.

In South Africa, Sea Harvest Group expects the industry to harvest all of its increased 2025 hake allocation of 151,700 metric tons due to fleet upgrades. The total allowable catch was increased by 4% for 2025, after a year in which the total was not fully utilized, but exports of frozen fillets and whole -- as well as fresh -- fish hit a record level of $192 million.

And US scallop harvesters and processors have a new worry about the coming 2025-26 season resulting from the recent change of presidential administrations. The new season was expected to start on April 1, but new fishing rules have triggered a further review by the White House Office of Management Budget, which could take up to 90 additional days to complete.

You can catch the rest of last week's most-read headlines below, and stay tuned as our team reports live from the Seafood Expo North America in Boston, US, this week.

• Chile's largest salmon farmer opens US plant
• US shrimp imports make big splash to open new year
• US tariffs complicate price negotiations in world's largest snow crab fishery as season nears
• Rabobank: China's demographic 'timebomb' to reshape global seafood trade
• Pacific Seafood in talks to acquire Florida skin-pack plant NovoMar
• Goldberg to join Aqua Star as shrimp, farmed fish buyer
• NOAA cancels presentation at Boston seafood show
• Snow crab quota cut in Canadian gulf slightly less severe than expected
• American Seafoods' Soerensen sees US surimi 'comeback' even with higher Russian volumes
• Owner of Peru's Oceano strikes again in US squid with deal for Town Dock