The Trump administration unveiled a seafood strategy on October 23 to expand exports and processing; the US trade office plans further negotiations and enforcement.
The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) says US seafood exports reached $5.53 billion in 2025, 12% more than in 2024. Exports continued to trend upward in 2026. The figures give exporters a comparison point as the administration pursues its seafood strategy.
President Donald Trump’s April 17, 2025 executive order directed the US commerce secretary, working with the agriculture secretary, to develop a strategy for seafood production, sales, exports and domestic processing. The White House unveiled that plan, the America First Seafood Strategy, on October 23, 2026. The administration intends it to widen foreign market access for US fishermen and encourage investment in domestic processing.
The April 2025 order also tasked Commerce with implementing the seafood strategy and directed Commerce and USTR to jointly develop a seafood trade strategy. It directed USTR to examine major seafood-producing nations’ trade practices and consider responses including negotiations or trade enforcement.
USTR ties several partners’ commitments to reciprocal trade agreements, rather than to new terms imposed by the seafood strategy. Taiwan committed to keep its fisheries subsidies from contributing to excess fishing capacity and overfishing, and to address violations of internationally recognized labor rights aboard commercial fishing vessels. Argentina, Bangladesh, Ecuador and Indonesia committed to combat illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, deter trade in seafood derived from it, and address harmful fisheries subsidies through fisheries management.
USTR is also monitoring how Mexico carries out existing fisheries obligations under the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement, including a commitment to prevent illegal fishing in the Upper Gulf of California.
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The office identifies Japanese seafood tariffs of up to 10% and import quotas as barriers for US exporters. It calls the European Union’s CATCH documentation and reporting requirements burdensome for US fishermen. USTR also links India’s fisheries subsidies and illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing in Vietnam to seafood entering the US at below-market prices, affecting US fishermen and supply chains. Its account identifies these practices; it does not announce a new tariff or other trade term against those markets.
On October 23, the White House announced the Food and Drug Administration’s proposal for a voluntary “U.S. Caught Seafood” label to help buyers identify seafood caught and harvested by US fishermen. It also announced the availability of more than $5 billion in US Department of Agriculture-guaranteed loans for modernized meat and seafood processing. The department launched an Office of Seafood in April 2026 to help the industry access its programs, while the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the US agency responsible for the fisheries measures, has changed fishing rules, reversed closures and increased harvest quotas.
For exporters, the next trade steps remain negotiations and enforcement rather than access granted by the strategy itself. USTR says it will keep using those tools with other federal agencies to seek new markets and address foreign practices it says disadvantage US fishermen, while continuing to monitor Mexico’s implementation of its existing obligations.
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