The West Coast seafood industry is caught in the crosshairs of tariff uncertainty. International orders have been canceled, which impacts Oregon workers. Industry leaders and Oregon’s Democratic Congressional delegation have asked the US Department of Agriculture to step in. Lori Steele is the executive director of the West Coast Seafood Processors Association. She joins us with details of the challenges facing the industry.
Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.
Dave Miller: From the Gert Boyle Studio at OPB, this is Think Out Loud. I’m Dave Miller. “Buy our shrimp, please” – that is the message from the West Coast Seafood Processors Association to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Right now, shrimp fishermen are collateral damage in the global trade war set off by the Trump administration. They want the USDA to buy shrimp domestically to make up for lost international orders.
Earlier this month, Oregon’s Democratic congressional delegation wrote a letter urging the USDA to do so. Lori Steele is the executive director of the association. She joins us now. It’s great to have you on the show.
Lori Steele: Hey, Dave, thanks for having me.
Miller: What led you to ask the USDA to buy up to 10 million pounds of pink shrimp?
Steele: The bottom line is that market volatility and market chaos led to that request. Our industry, particularly the pink shrimp industry, has been facing challenges in the global marketplace for years. We’ve been outpriced of many international markets, due to tariffs. But the latest volatility and chaos came from the Trump administration’s announcements of reciprocal tariffs, which then led to international announcements of retaliatory tariffs, and really upended our global markets just as our pink shrimp season was getting ready to start on April 1.
Miller: Before we get to what’s happened in the last couple of months, I do want to follow up on what you’re just saying there, that you’ve already been affected by, I guess, other countries’ tariffs and outpriced, as you said. So what important markets have set tariffs that have meant that Oregon shrimp are basically impossible to sell in other countries?
Steele: A lot of the countries have been the European countries, which happen to be the largest consumers of cold water shrimp in the world. We have been squeezed out of the market in the UK. We’ve had a 20% tariff on our cold water shrimp going into the UK for years. And in the European Union also, we worked very hard to get some amount of our product in there duty free. But it was a hard sell. We did get some in there duty free before this latest announcement.
But just at the time that this latest announcement came, we had also applied for tariff suspension in the UK. We found out that we did not receive that tariff suspension. So it’s been an ongoing thing and, unfortunately for our pink shrimp, it’s been in some of the biggest global markets for shrimp.
Miller: So with these tariffs from the UK or the EU, has that meant that you have not been able to sell pink shrimp in those countries in recent years? Or you have, but not as much as you’d like?
Steele: We have not made it into the UK at all because of the tariff. We have made it into the EU, but not nearly as much as we would like, given the demand in the EU. However, with the latest announcements, the EU is essentially calling off any sort of duty-free product that would be coming in. So we’ve lost that opportunity now this year in the EU.
Miller: So let’s take it up to now. There’s been so much back and forth in this trade war. Where do things stand right now in terms of the markets where Oregon shrimp had been ending up?
Steele: Things are incredibly uncertain right now. We have seen customers, particularly internationally, seek product elsewhere where there is less uncertainty and less volatility. And we are in a situation where we are scrambling to maintain current markets, along with trying to get our product into new markets, particularly in the United States.
We would love to have everybody in the United States eating our pink shrimp. So we’re working on that too. It’s just that with such changes happening and such instability, it’s been very difficult to be able to pivot and find new markets for this product right as the season’s starting.
Miller: How has the season gone so far? My understanding is that the fishery opened just at the beginning of last month. How has it been so far, just in terms of hauls?
Steele: Well, the good news in all of this is that the pink shrimp fishery is a sustainable fishery. It’s certified sustainable. We have healthy stocks out there. The 2024 shrimp catch was one of the highest on record. And we have all signs pointing to a really strong 2025 season. We had to start slow, given the market instability and uncertainty, but the boats are out fishing, catch is good, and we are hopeful that we’ll be able to get this product processed and sold at very high levels this year.
Miller: Have you gotten any response since your initial ask to the USDA, and then the poke from Oregon’s Democratic members of Congress and the Senate?
Steele: Yes, I am really happy to be able to say, just this morning, I did receive a call from USDA. They are committing to purchasing pink shrimp in the Section 32 Program up to $16 million. That equates to around 4 million pounds of product. Just got that word this morning. We are super excited about it and incredibly grateful to our entire Democratic Oregon delegation, as well as Governor Kotek. Governor Kotek stepped in on this, and also sent a letter and pushed USDA on this. So it was a group effort and it really showed how important this industry is and how important this fishery is to the state of Oregon.
Miller: When has this happened before? In the letter from the Democratic senators and members of Congress, they did say that they appreciate the work the USDA has done “in the past” for much needed security for the industry. So when did they do this before?
Steele: We have been working on this partnership with USDA essentially, in earnest, since the COVID-19 pandemic. When the pandemic hit in March of 2020, we lost our restaurant markets overnight. That was really what prompted us to dig in and work hard with USDA to find avenues for purchasing our product for food assistance programs. That’s essentially what this program is. It is a program that’s intended to allow the USDA to step in and buy large volumes of product that have lost other markets. So we lost our restaurant markets in the pandemic. And ever since then, we’ve really been trying to rebuild and regain our market shares.
But it’s been one thing after another. After the pandemic, we saw massive inflation and a lot of changes in our markets due to that. Then, of course, just the trade uncertainty that continues on. We’ve had all kinds of crazy trade events. So, for pink shrimp, the last time USDA bought a large volume of pink shrimp was in 2023, coming out of the pandemic and recognizing a lot of these trade challenges that we’re facing internationally.
Miller: Where are up to 4 million pounds of Oregon pink shrimp that the USDA is now going to buy going to end up?
Steele: That’s the best part about this. That shrimp is gonna end up all over the country, in all kinds of domestic food assistance programs and in school lunch programs that are administered by the USDA. This is a great opportunity for us to really try to build those markets domestically that we’d like to have for this product. And this is a great way to get our product out all over the country to families in need and to families who may not be familiar with this product.
Miller: So that folks know, we’re not talking about large shrimp like for a shrimp cocktail. We’re talking about the very small ones. What do you think they might be used for in a school lunch?
Steele: This shrimp is such an easy product. It comes already cooked, already shelled, in frozen bags that can be used for shrimp salad sandwiches. It can be used on salads. It can be used as a shrimp salad. But the good part about this is that for schools and for food assistance programs, it’s just a super easy product to work with.
Miller: We’ve obviously just, so far, been talking about the shrimp fishery. But you do represent a bunch of other commercial fisheries in the Northwest. What about whiting, groundfish or Dungeness crab later … are they also likely to face similar issues because of this trade war?
Steele: The short answer is yes. The markets are different for all of the products, but these are products that have an international component to their markets, that’s very important to our industry and our companies. These are also highly, highly sustainable products. We’ve got MSC [Marine Stewardship Council] certified rockfish, shrimp and whiting.
So these are all products that we need to keep in the marketplace, we need to keep our processors being able to produce at a very high level because the stocks can support that. And these are products that can help feed our country and feed the world.
We’ve had problems with whiting in the past that the USDA has stepped in and helped us on. Our biggest market for whiting is in the Ukraine. So, as you can imagine, the war in Ukraine over the last few years caused huge disruption to that market. USDA has stepped in and purchased volumes of whiting filets, which again, are now being served in food assistance programs around the country. So now we’ve got U.S. consumers finally eating this amazing product that we have in abundance out in our oceans that a lot of people don’t even know is there or what it is.
Miller: Lori Steele, thanks so much for your time today.
Steele: Thank you.
Miller: Lori Steele is the executive director of the West Coast Seafood Processors Association. As she just noted, just this morning, the USDA sent her a letter saying that they will purchase up to about 4 million pounds of pink shrimp.
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