July 3, 2019 — A year ago this month, China imposed a sweeping array of retaliatory tariffs that effectively closed off the massive Chinese consumer market to U.S. seafood dealers — particularly lobster exporters such as Mortillaro Lobster of Gloucester.
Consider: Mortillaro estimates that during the first six months of 2019, the 25% Chinese tariffs have cost it more than a half-million pounds of lobster sales to China, valued at about $6 million.
“The impact has been huge,” Vince Mortillaro, one of the owners of the Gloucester seafood dealer, said Tuesday afternoon. “We’ve had to lay people off. We’re not losing a barrel-full right now, but we’re not really making any money, either. And it’s tough to come to work when the company’s not really making any money.”
And it’s not just China.
Mortillaro and other lobster exporters also have been stung by deep cuts in lobster sales to the European Union — primarily because of an exclusive trade deal between Canada and the EU that frees Canadian lobster exporters from any tariffs while imposing an 8% tariff on shipments from the U.S.
“We used to sell more to the EU than to China,” Mortillaro said. “Now we’ve got the double-whammy. We can’t sell to the 28 EU countries and we can’t sell to China.”