The U.S. International Trade Commission on Thursday revoked a 20-year-old antidumping tariff on fresh and chilled Atlantic salmon from Norway.
After conducting a five-year sunset review, as required by international trade law, the agency found that the U.S. salmon-farming industry would not be harmed if the 24 percent tariff was lifted.
This tariff stemmed from an antidumping petition Maine-based Atlantic Salmon of Maine and Heritage Salmon filed with the ITC in 1991, essentially shutting fresh and chilled Norwegian salmon out of the U.S. market. But since then, both companies have been acquired, and now Maine’s salmon farms are owned by Cooke Aquaculture of New Brunswick, Canada. U.S.-raised product (there are also salmon farms in Washington state) represent only a fraction of the U.S. salmon supply, as the majority is imported from Canada and Chile.
Lisbeth Berg-Hansen, Norway’s fisheries minister, welcomed the news. “This is a question of principle and the matter is fundamentally significant, with important industrial and trade policy aspects that need clarifying, she said in a press release cited by theforeigner.no.
For years, Norway had pushed the United States to revoke the tariff, pointing to the fact that there wasn’t much of U.S. salmon-farming industry left to protect and that salmon prices have dropped considerably as global production has expanded rapidly.
