GLOUCESTER , MASS. (WHDH) - Fishermen across Gloucester have shared their concerns on what tariffs could mean to their way of life.
A roundtable, hosted by Congressman Seth Moulton, comes as trade hostilities have ramped up between the U.S., Canada, and China.
“We don’t know what the tariff policy is going to be,” said Congressman Seth Moulton. “One minute it’s 20% tariffs, the next minute we have a pause for a month. Is that going to be two months? Is it going to be a year? We have no idea. It makes it very hard to run a business and I’m not Elon Musk, so I’m not running the country.”
Canada is the largest seafood market for the U.S. in both imports and exports. The talk of tariffs increasing raises serious questions for those who’s livelihoods depend on selling what they catch.
“You got folks who depend on exports into the E.U. into China and we know that Canada has a beneficial arrangement with the E.U. already and now if we add a tariff on top of that, we don’t know what the impact is going to be,” said one roundtable attendee.
“The problem is not whether it’s ten percent, fifteen percent, twenty five percent, China will stop buying and that’s our outlet for probably 40% of our lobster now end up going to China one way or the other,” said another roundtable attendee.
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