The intention of China to slap 25% prices on Canadian seafood products adds another layer of uncertainty to an industry already threatened by American tasks, said sector representatives in Atlantic Canada.
China announced on Saturday reprisal rates in response to the Canadian surcharge of 100% on all Chinese manufacturing vehicles, and 25% on steel and aluminum.
And while 25% of American rates on Canadian seafood and other goods are on April 2, Chinese tasks should take effect on March 20 on a long list of products such as lobster, snow crab and shrimp.
In an interview on Monday, Kris Vascotto, Executive Director of the Nova Scotia Seafood Alliance, described the Move of China a “very strategic success” in the fishing and seafood in Atlantic Canada.
“It will arise as a challenge, there is no doubt,” said Vascotto. “Essentially, the landscape has fundamentally changed. Another clear demonstration that we have seen in recent months that commercial shares have reactions have been reactions. »»
Vascotto, whose organization represents 135 processors and shipments based on shore, said it was planned that the resulting price volatility will affect the supply chain “to the harvester”.
He said Chinese tasks will hit lobster and snow crab as well as niche products such as sea cucumber, belk and shrimp.
“In one way or another, these tariff costs will have to be absorbed so that we can continue to move products,” said Vascotto. “We can certainly expect a fairly volatile season to come.”
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According to the federal government, China is the second largest market for fish and seafood exports in Canada after the United States, with $ 1.3 billion in the Asian nation in 2024.
Federal figures show that the main seafood exports from Canada to China in 2023 were lobster at $ 569 million, 300 million dollars and shrimps at $ 262 million, representing 78% of all seafood exports to this country.
Nat Richard, Executive Director of the Lobster Processors Association, a Moncton group, based in NB, which represents 25 Condeled lobster and crab product processors in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and EPI, said that even if everyone is “a little shaken”, the impacts will probably be felt by companies that are shipping international. Richard said exports to the United States of frozen lobster were 80% last year, while those in China represented three%.
However, he said that the effects will vary from an individual treatment plant.
“At a general level overall, it is a small tranche of the market for frozen lobster products, but for certain individual plants, they do a lot of business in China. The export profile varies from one plant to another. »»
Richard said that the issues are higher for processors concerning American prices due to a highly integrated supply chain.
On March 4, the Donald Trump administration imposed prices of 25% on almost all Canadian and Mexican imports, with a 10% lower levy on Canadian energy. But last week, after the days of chaos on the market, Trump signed an executive decree delaying until next month these prices for goods – such as seafood – which meet the requirements of the original rules under the free trade agreement between American Canada and Mexico.
Richard said that a large part of the lobster captured by Maine fishermen, which represents around 85% of the American harvest, is transformed by Canadian plants.
“Whether we have a price or not, we will continue to provide the market … But obviously, it is concerned about the fact that this will affect the market, it could weigh on demand.”
Meanwhile, Stewart Lamont, Managing Director of Tangier Lobster Company Ltd., in Tangier, NS, said that the 25% rate by China is added to a price of seven percent preceding and a value added from nine percent imposed by this country.
“It is at least important and it comes at a time when we are already targeted under the American rates,” said Lamont, whose society ships the lobster living in 13 countries around the world.
The company is located just over an hour of air freight services at Halifax Stanfield International Airport and Lamont said it had succeeded over a period of around 40 years in the diversification of its export markets. It currently has no product in the United States and around 15% in China.
“We have always tried to be diversified and all our eggs are not in the Chinese basket, that’s for sure,” he said.
However, there are companies that send most of their lobster living in China and Lamont said it would make things difficult because the new markets are not obtained overnight.
“All these things take time, money, marketing and creativity, so the pivot is more difficult than people think it,” he said.
According to the Chinese Customs Tariff Commission of the Council of State, additional 100% prices will be imposed on the cakes and peas of Canadian rapeseed oil, and the 25% additional prices will apply on pork and aquatic products.
& Copy 2025 the Canadian press
