United States President Donald Trump is ordering the Agriculture Department to lay out a financial assistance to American lobster fishermen to compensate for lost revenue from Chinese taxes.
White House trade advisor Peter Navarro disclosed that Trump signed a memorandum Wednesday calling for the government to make subsidies such as those offered to soybean and other farmers available to the lobster market.
Navarro stated that the president is also directing Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to report on whether Beijing is starting to meet its $150 million in lobster purchase commitments under the Phase One deal approved by Trump earlier this year. Otherwise, the president will direct Lighthizer to look into placing new restrictions on China's seafood industry.
Trump also directed the Agriculture Department to give lobster fishermen other types of assistance that other sectors of the agriculture industry are receiving to safeguard them from unfair and harmful trade practices, Navarro said.
Senator Angus King of Maine welcomed the president's decision and stated it would make a significant difference for Maine lobstermen who were doubly affected by Chinese tariffs levied in 2018 and the decline of restaurant sales during the pandemic lockdowns.
Maine lobster had been on track in 2018 in terms of export values for a record-setting year, before the beginning of the China-US trade discord that Trump launched. Maine exported lobster worth USD32 million (EUR 117 million) in 2017, with much of that amount consisting of exports to China.
Paul Anderson, executive director of the Maine Center for Coastal Fisheries, a research and advocacy group, said the lobster fleet was traditionally seasonal, focusing on serving summertime demand in the US. Yet the activities of the half-billion-dollar industry did likewise as the sector grew globally.
Ships and production plants started operating all year round, and entrepreneurs and 7,000 independent lobster fishermen from the state poured investment into new facilities and equipment.
In 2018, the State had already exported USD87 million (EUR 68.3 million) in lobster to mainland China by June before the taxes kicked in, almost twice the amount it had exported the previous year. The new memorandum includes guidelines to ensure that China is buying the negotiated amount of lobster, including the USTR's monthly analysis of exports to China.
China is one of the largest lobster export destinations that are trapped by US and Canadian fishermen in the Atlantic Ocean. Yet Trump's tariffs on Chinese products resulted in US lobster retaliatory tariffs.
