Scottish farmed Atlantic salmon.
Photo: Adobe Stock.
The new wave of tariffs announced by Trump's Administration at the end of last week leaves Scottish salmon as it was. The 10% tariff remains unchanged, in what Salmon Scotland's CEO, Tavish Scott, pointed out, is the second most important market worldwide for salmon from Scotland.
On July 23, under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 and on behalf of President Trump, the United States Trade Representative (USTR), through its Ambassador Jamieson Greer, announced the imposition of tariffs on 60 economies "for their failure to impose and effectively enforce a prohibition on the importation of goods produced with forced labor." Depending on the level of compliance, the tariffs could be 12.5% or 10%.
In its ruling, the USTR also said that "10 percent is the appropriate rate of Section 301 duties for investigated economies that (i) impose a forced labor import prohibition; (ii) have committed to impose and enforce such a prohibition through an Agreement on Reciprocal Trade; or (iii) have imposed a partial regime with the effect of preventing the importation of certain forced labor goods."
According to the resolution, these economies are Argentina, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Canada, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Malaysia, Mexico, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Trinidad and Tobago and the United Kingdom.
The list, therefore, does not contain other salmon-producing countries such as Norway or Chile, which have been included in the list of exporters that will face a 12.5% tariff. Only Canada—which meets the requirements of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement and was therefore exempt—is now in a better position.
Thus, in practice, this latest wave of US tariffs has worked in favor of Scottish salmon, which will continue to face "only" 10% in a key export destination. As mentioned, the U.S. is the world's second most important market for salmon from Scotland, with around 35,000 tons, valued at GBP 300 million, shipped to the United States annually.
Although Salmon Scotland has not made an official statement, given the lack of significant changes, the Scottish salmon trade body has published a post on LinkedIn in which, in addition to recalling the export figures we just mentioned, it shared statements from its CEO, Tavish Scott, speaking on the matter with journalist Hayley Millar on BBC Scotland Radio.
"We've been through the ups and downs of the US administration's position on tariffs for some time now, and this is the latest iteration of that, so it'd be important to work through the detail if it affects us in any more way than the tariffs do currently," he said.
Despite the challenges posed by the Trump Administration's unpredictability, given the export figures mentioned above, Scott noted that the U.S. is a strong market and they are confident this will continue regardless of tariffs.
"The one bit of predictability to it is that the US consumer very much wants to purchase and consume salmon from here, so that gives us confidence that whatever the ups and downs of administration policy towards tariffs and however they may affect business, we have very strong trading relationships with importers in the United States and our customer base is very strong," he said.
The CEO of Salmon Scotland added that, in his view, this will allow them to overcome any situation that may arise and, as has already happened in the past, face any setback that may result from this latest announcement.
"I think the point you make about the predictability or rather the unpredictability of Trump tariffs is kind of priced in now to how we operate and that'll continue for the foreseeable future, I suspect," Tavish Scott told the BBC Scotland Radio journalist.
While this is happening with the U.S., Scottish salmon—which is also the UK's favorite fish, with sales hitting GBP 1.6 billion in the 12 months to April—will be tariff-free in other markets such as India, whose free trade agreement came into effect this month; South Korea, where exports reached GBP 366,000 in 2024; or the Gulf states, which will guarantee it permanent tariff-free access to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.