Nova Scotia lobster industry surprised, elated by suspension of Chinese tariff

HALIFAX – Key players in Nova Scotia’s lucrative seafood industry are applauding Ottawa’s successful bid to persuade China to temporarily drop a painful 25 per cent tariff on Canadian lobster and crab.

Stewart Lamont, managing director of Tangier Lobster Company, said Friday the tariff is responsible for at least a 30 per cent decline in sales of live lobster to China since it was imposed in March.

“From an industry perspective, that additional tariff has been massively impactful in a negative way,” Lamont said in an interview. “Add the cost of freight and a (Chinese value-added tax) that brought prices up by a total of 41 per cent, it was too expensive for (Chinese) buyers.”

Tangier Lobster’s sales to three Chinese clients used to represent 10 per cent of the company’s business, but that figure dropped to two per cent during the past calendar year, said Lamont, who has been selling lobster to clients in Europe, the Middle East and Asia for the past 40 years.

According to the federal figures, China is Canada’s second-largest fish and seafood export market after the United States, with $1.3 billion in products shipped to the Asian nation in 2024. Among those products, lobster was the top seller in China, amounting to $569 million. Crab was next at $300 million and shrimp was third at $262 million.

Statistics Canada says China bought $11.8 million worth of live lobsters in October, down 31 per cent from $17.1 million from a year earlier. But Lamont says the total amount of export sales is significantly higher because much of the Canadian product is shipped via the United States.

Lamont said that since April, most Nova Scotia exporters selling to Chinese buyers were barely covering their costs and some were selling at a loss to maintain their link to a market with 1.4 billion people. 

“They either wanted to or needed to keep that business model going, but it’s been unproductive, to say the least,” said Lamont, whose company on Nova Scotia’s eastern shore has clients in Canada and in 14 other countries.

Kris Vascotto, executive director of the Nova Scotia Seafood Alliance, said he did not expect the delegation led by Prime Minister Mark Carney to make such substantial progress in China.

“To see these types of announcements come out so quickly demonstrates that there’s a very good working relationship at the officials’ level, and it’s a thawing of diplomatic relationships,” Vascotto said in an interview Friday. 

He said the tariff deal could lead to higher prices at the wharf for Nova Scotia’s fishing industry.

Still, Vascotto said he’s concerned that China agreed to suspend the tariff only between March and the end of this year, and he said it remains unclear whether the suspension applies to other Canadian seafood exports. The federal government’s statement issued early Friday specifically mentions lobster and crab, but no other species is mentioned.

While lobster and crab remain at the top when it comes to generating value for Nova Scotia, Vascotto said many livelihoods depend on other species, including cold water shrimp, surf clams, sea cucumbers and whelks.

“All those add up to quite substantial exports going into China,” said Vascotto, whose organization represents more than 200 land-based seafood companies that contribute to the province’s $2.6 billion seafood sector.

“The cold water shrimp sector has lost tens of millions of dollars on their value going into China because of the tariff.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 16, 2026.