WA farmers, seafood producers brace for Chinese tariffs as trade war deepens

Another day, another Washington state industry caught in the trade crossfire between the U.S. and much of the rest of the world.

On Friday, farmers, seafood companies and other food makers in Washington were weighing potential damage after China announced 34% tariffs on U.S. exports, starting next Thursday, in retaliation for a new 34% U.S. tariff on Chinese goods announced Wednesday by President Donald Trump.

Though not unexpected, China’s tariff tit-for-tat means yet more pain for trade-reliant Washington, which last year sold nearly $700 million in everything from beef and seafood to wheat and hay to China, the state’s No. 4 export market for agricultural goods and seafood.

“It’s just unprecedented, what’s happening,” said Mark Anderson of Ellensburg-based Anderson Hay, which sells 70% of its crop overseas, including in China, of the latest tariffs. “And the more you dive into the details, the scarier the consequences are, because they’re all unknown.”

Indeed, this week’s trade moves and countermoves bring more questions than answers for many of Washington’s food exporters. 

As in earlier tariff rounds, exporters aren’t sure whether Trump’s new “reciprocal” tariffs will be pulled back as part of ongoing negotiations or provoke more retaliation from other countries.

But some industry insiders say they’re already seeing foreign buyers canceling contracts for U.S. goods out of fear that any retaliation by their own governments will make U.S. goods too expensive. Retaliatory tariffs will mean additional costs to importers, who must pay those new fees to governments where they’re based, making the imported goods pricier and less competitive.

Many U.S. exporters are bracing for big hits, especially in sectors such as seafood or wheat or cherries, which have a sizable presence in China.

If retaliatory tariffs make their foods too expensive to compete in China, Washington exporters might struggle to quickly find alternative foreign buyers or to sell their surpluses in the U.S.  

“We’re not going to sell four times the number of McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish in the United States — we need global markets,” said Matt Tinning, CEO of the At-sea Processors Association, which represents companies working the Alaska pollock fishery and West Coast Pacific whiting fishery.

Many U.S. exporters were already facing the extra costs of previous retaliatory tariffs by China that followed tariffs that were imposed in Trump’s first term and which, in some cases, were increased by President Joe Biden. 

Since then, many tree fruit farmers have faced an effective tariff of around 55% on shipments to China, said Mark Powers, president of the Northwest Horticultural Council, which works with growers, packers and shippers of apples, pears and sweet cherries in Washington, Idaho and Oregon.

Those earlier tariffs have already cut apple and cherry sales to China by around 70%, Powers said.

More recent Chinese retaliatory moves will only add to those tariffs. Northwest growers could lose even more of their Chinese market to competitors in places such as New Zealand, South Africa, Europe and China itself, Powers said. 

Rivals will “just have a larger market presence (in China) with our absence,” said Powers. 

Similar concerns have roiled global markets, resulting in falling stock prices and anxious pleas by exporters to the White House and to members of Congress, especially in farming regions.

“This is absolutely penetrating, no matter which party you’re in,” said U.S. Rep. Kimberly Schrier, D-Sammamish, whose cross-Cascades 8th District includes farm-intensive regions around Ellensburg and Wenatchee. “I know that other members of Congress and senators are hearing about this loud and clear.”

Less clear, Schrier said, is whether that translates into legislation to blunt the effects of tariffs. Schrier notes that fellow Democrat Maria Cantwell has co-sponsored Senate legislation to give Congress more authority in setting tariffs.

But while the bill has bipartisan support, including from seven Senate Republicans as of Friday evening, it’s uncertain whether there’s enough support to provide a veto-proof majority.

Many growers in Washington broadly support Trump’s desire to pressure foreign governments to reduce trade barriers to U.S. exports, particularly given that U.S. import taxes that have been relatively low historically.

But some have expressed concern about the fact that Trump’s latest tariffs are so large and were imposed on so many countries at once.

“This is a very high-stakes approach that has incredible complexity to it,” said Anderson, the hay exporter. Though he counts himself as a Republican, and agrees that U.S. farmers deserve more access to foreign markets, he thinks more congressional involvement in tariff policy “probably makes sense.”

China is, of course, only one market, and Washington exporters are expecting retaliation from others in the coming days and weeks.

That includes shrimpers and processors on the West Coast, where pink shrimp season started Tuesday, and whose biggest foreign market is the European Union, which is also expected to retaliate soon, said Lori Steele, executive director of the West Coast Seafood Processors Association.

Additional tariffs could “price us right out of that market,” Steele said. “It’s a really big problem, you know, when you just lose your market for half of the catch.”