US lobster firms anxious to resume business with China

US lobster businesses are anxious to resume business with China as the China-US phase-one economic and trade deal came into effect on Feb 14.

Hugh Reynolds, a lobster dealer from the northeastern US town of Stonington, Maine, hopes to resume business with China soon.

Having been in the industry for more than 20 years, Reynolds' company, Greenhead Lobster, is one of the largest lobster wholesalers in Stonington, a town long known for its rich and historic tradition of lobstering.

His Chinese partners are scattered across Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and many more cities, and more than 200 boats used to go out lobstering for Greenhead Lobster every day, with an annual harvest of 10 million pounds of live lobsters, of which more than 30 percent had been shipped to China.

However, all of the company's exports to China stopped in July 2018, when China imposed a 25 percent additional tariff on imported US lobsters in response to the US threat of an additional 25-percent tariff on Chinese imports worth about $50 billion.

Many wholesalers like Greenhead Lobster faced the same difficult situation. China's promise to purchase more agricultural products from the United States gave them hope because lobsters are highlighted in the sector, according to the China-US phase-one economic and trade deal.