New reporting from The Hill reveals that Donald Trump’s attempts to paper over the damage his disastrous trade policies have inflicted on Maine’s vital lobster industry are falling flat. Despite pledging to “lift restrictions” for Maine’s lobster industry, Trump’s actions haven’t “helped the Maine fisherman at all.”

While lobster hauls increased throughout President Obama’s time in office, Trump’s reckless trade war with China caused “real turmoil” for Maine’s lobster industry when China imposed retaliatory levies on American lobster. Now, the vital Chinese market has “vanished” as a result of Trump’s policies.

The Hill: Trump’s pitch to Maine lobstermen falls flat

By Rebecca Beitsch

August 6, 2020

Key Points:

  • President Trump is struggling to win over Maine voters with his recent pledge to lift restrictions for the state’s lobster industry. Trump was beaming when he traveled to the state just two months ago to tell lobstermen he was reversing protections for some 5,000 miles of ocean territory in a bid to open it to fishing.

 

  • But the state’s lobstermen aren’t celebrating. That’s because the area Trump aims to reopen is 130 miles southeast of Cape Cod — far beyond the reach of Maine’s day-boat lobstermen.

 

  • “This doesn’t help the Maine fisherman at all,” Leroy Weed, 79, who has had a lobster license since he was 10 years old, said of Trump’s reversal of protections for the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument off of Cape Cod.

 

  • Most of Maine’s lobstering takes place within three miles of shore, and even those with a federal license don’t typically travel more than 30 miles offshore.

 

  • Trump’s pronouncement in June marked his latest overture to an industry that has been hit hard by tariffs in his trade war with China.

 

  • As November nears — and as polls show presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden with a double-digit lead over Trump in Maine — Trump has floated a number of proposals, including financial aid for the lobster industry, to undo what he says was damage done by former President Obama.

 

  • But Maine lobster hauls steadily increased during the Obama administration. The real turmoil for the industry came in 2018, when the Chinese market vanished under a 35 percent tariff on lobster.

 

  • Tom Adams, a lobster wholesaler who founded Maine Coast, recalled when he first heard about the tariffs. “I read that news, and when my wife got home later that evening, I told her about the tariffs and how it could potentially impact the Maine coast and our family and I spent a weekend kind of feeling bad for myself,” Adams told The Hill. 

 

  • After the tariffs hit, Maine lobster trade with China dropped 48 percent. Adams was heavily invested in China at the time — his sales there dropped 80 percent — and said his company worked hard to find new markets so their sales wouldn’t plummet, a challenge he still faces today.

 

  • Some of the largest markets for lobster — cruise ships and restaurants — have shut down because of the outbreak. “At this time when the lobster industry is struggling and the domestic market remains paralyzed by COVID, it would be helpful to have a thriving international market,” said Genevieve McDonald, the Democratic state representative from Stonington and herself a lobster boat captain.

 

  • Trump’s main solution for the industry has been more fishing, arguing that marine protections, not tariffs, have reduced lobstermen’s income.

 

  • The president has argued that lobstermen’s income was reduced not by tariffs but by Obama’s designation of the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument off Cape Cod. “They took away your livelihood. It’s ridiculous,” he said while reversing the protections. However, the Obama-era restrictions on lobstering in the area aren’t slated to take effect until 2023.

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