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Friday, July 10, 2026

  • 1 day ago
  • 5 min read

Alaska

Coast Guard replaces buoys in False Pass, adds additional marker for mariner safety

KUCB by Maggie Nelson - July 9, 2026

The U.S. Coast Guard recently replaced about 30 buoys near False Pass, just in time for the bulk of the region’s summer salmon vessel traffic.


Fleet shifts to Naknek-Kvichak as Bristol Bay nears 29 million

National Fisherman by staff - July 8, 2026

Bristol Bay's 2026 sockeye salmon run continued to build Monday, with the total run approaching 29 million fish as fishermen increasingly reposition toward the Naknek-Kvichak District for the next phase of the season.

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Weathervane scallop commercial fishing season kicks off in Kodiak

KMXT by Katherine Irving - July 8, 2026 

The 2026/27 Alaska weathervane scallop fishery opened July 1. 


West Coast

New tagging study tracks Dungeness crab movement in Puget Sound

National Fisherman by staff - July 7, 2026

State and tribal fishery managers in Washington are using a floy-tag study to track how Dungeness crab move through parts of Puget Sound, with the goal of improving how catch quotas and fishing seasons are set in areas where crab populations have struggled.

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National

Seafood Industry Split at USTR Forced Labor Tariff Hearings as July 24 Deadline Looms

SeafoodNews by Ryan Doyle - July 10, 2026

The US seafood industry arrived at this week's USTR Section 301 hearings divided — importers warning of a $2.86 billion annual tariff hit, domestic shrimp and catfish producers pushing for higher duties and outright import bans — with a hard statutory deadline adding urgency to the entire proceeding.

The three-day hearings, held July 7–9 at the US International Trade Commission, covered USTR's proposed forced labor tariffs on 60 economies:

10% on countries with at least partial forced labor import bans, including Canada, Mexico, Ecuador, and the EU, and 12.5% on the remaining 46, including India, Vietnam, Chile, and Norway. Day 2 was the food and agriculture sector's session, with salmon, shrimp, smoked fish, and catfish interests all on the panel.

The July 24 clock

The hearings took place against a ticking clock. The 10% global import surcharge currently applied to most seafood was imposed under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, which caps such surcharges at 150 days by statute. That period expires at 12:01 a.m. EDT on July 24 — automatically, with no congressional extension pending.

The Section 301 forced labor tariffs are widely understood to be the intended replacement. "Right now, we have something called Section 122 tariffs, which is a 10 percent global tariff," Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC's Squawk Box on June 24. "If those studies are successful — and I have no reason to believe they won't be — then the tariff rates are going to go back to exactly where they were."

But no implementation date for the Section 301 action has been published — that detail would appear only in the final notice, which has not been issued. With post-hearing rebuttal comments due around July 14, USTR has roughly 10 days to finalize product scope and publish a Federal Register notice before Section 122 runs out.

The switchover is not neutral for seafood. Unlike some agricultural products already shielded in Annex A — the proposed exemption schedule — seafood has no current exemption.

Importers of Chilean salmon face a 12.5% duty under Section 301, compared with the current flat 10% under Section 122. And once finalized, Section 301 carries no expiration date, making this week's comment record consequential well beyond July 24.

The importer case

The National Fisheries Institute (NFI), the principal US seafood trade association, submitted written comments urging USTR to add all commercial seafood to Annex A. EVP and General Counsel Robert DeHaan calculated that the proposed rates would generate $2.86 billion in annual tariff liability across the sector.

He warned that existing tariff pressure is already diverting supply: Norway's seafood exports to the US fell 24% in the first four months of 2026, while its exports to China jumped 54%; India's shrimp shipments to the US dropped from 236.6 million pounds in January 2025 to 155.4 million pounds in January 2026, while its exports to China rose 60% in Q1 2026.

Retail data attached to NFI's filing showed frozen shrimp prices up 18.1% year-on-year in May, while pound sales fell 11.4%.NFI was far from alone. Hundreds of parties across industries filed comments on the docket, many making similar exemption requests with their own supply chain specifics.

Among the more detailed individual submissions, Santa Monica Seafood — the largest specialty wholesale seafood distributor in the Southwestern US — laid out its case in HTS-code specifics, requesting exemptions for shrimp from India, Ecuador, Indonesia, and Vietnam, and Atlantic salmon from Chile, Norway, and Canada. CEO Roger O'Brien noted that shrimp and Atlantic salmon together represent 45% of all seafood consumed in the US, with imports supplying approximately 90% and 98% of each, respectively.

SalmonChile, which traveled to Washington as part of a broader Chilean trade delegation, echoed the argument. "Imposing this tax would be a strategic error that would end up operating as a direct tax on the American consumer," said SalmonChile president Patricio Melero, as Expana covered.

The domestic producer case

The American Coalition for Fair Trade in Seafood, representing US catfish aquaculture and filed by Wiley Rein attorneys Nazak Nikakhtar and Stephanie Bell, urged USTR to impose a higher rate on Vietnam — and to pursue import bans under Section 307 of the Tariff Act.

The coalition estimated Vietnamese exports of forced-labor-linked goods to the US at $29 billion in 2025, and cited an ILO survey finding that 13% of migrant workers in fishing and seafood processing in the region were in forced labor conditions.

The Southern Shrimp Alliance's Benjamin Duffy-Howard also appeared on the panel, maintaining the domestic shrimp industry's longstanding position that the tariffs are warranted and necessary.

The final determination, once published, will be the first permanent replacement for the IEEPA tariff regime — and for the seafood sector, the stakes of where USTR draws the Annex A line are substantial.


International

Seafood industry, IUU campaigners declare EU’s CATCH system a letdown six months in

SeafoodSource by Mark Godfrey - July 8, 2026

At the beginning of 2026, the E.U. launched a new digital traceability system it labeled CATCH, which requires digital catch certificates, containing such information as vessel identification numbers, the start date of a fishing trip, gear type, and location of the catch, to be attached to all fishery products entering the E.U. 

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