Chinese seafood merchants say they have already begun buying lobster and fish from other countries as tariffs make American seafood too expensive.
Washington last week imposed 25 percent tariffs on $34 billion worth of Chinese products. Beijing responded by imposing similar duties on the same amount of U.S. imports.
On a visit to Beijing’s largest wholesale seafood market, The Associated Press found scant American fish or crustaceans for sale.
Fish brought to Beijing’s Jingshen market are sold to distributors to source restaurants and grocers all across China.
The recent 25 percent tariff has made American lobster unaffordable, according to Beijing seafood distributor Ma Mengjie.
Zhang Song, general manager of a lobster and crab import shop, said he considers American lobsters inferior in quality to those from Canada. Now that they’re also more expensive, “we would be even less likely to import American ones, right?
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