June 17, 2021 — Imported squid volumes, prior to 2019, typically trended at 160 million pounds of product entering the United States per year on average. This figure took a massive hit in 2019 when tariffs were implemented on product from China, the main supplying country of squid into the U.S. This resulted in a drop of about 33.3 million pounds from the country. Enter a global pandemic and imports continue to downtrend as 2020 brought in 99 million pounds of squid products, or 65 million pounds less than the previous historical average.
In looking at how 2021 is shaping up, with import information available through April 2021, the year-to-date totals are at least tracking steady or above the previous two years. However, they are falling about 10 million pounds below the typical year-to-date average of this time frame.