March 21, 2018 – U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross was quoted in Inside U.S. Trade and Politico today. “ROSS KEEPS THINKING ABOUT THAT SEAFOOD TRADE DEFICIT.” Ross said one of his “pet peeves” continues to be the fact that the U.S. has a trade deficit in seafood.

“I hate the idea that with all the waters surrounding us and with all the waters inland that we have a trade deficit in fish,” Ross said Tuesday in response to a question at a House Appropriations Committee hearing. “I’ve put a lot of pressure on the fisheries management group at NOAA to try to deal with this situation. I think there’s some potential that some of the constraints that we’ve had on fresh catch here maybe need to be relaxed a little bit.”

Ross said he’s also focusing his attention on seafood imports, although he didn’t say what specific action he is advocating. “It seems to me that we should be very careful about importing seafood from places that do not adhere to the same standards we would have for aquaculture here in the U.S.,” he said.