Among the most anticipated sessions at Seafood Expo Global 2026 is one focused on the intersection of tariff policy and seafood trade between the EU and US markets. With US-China trade tensions continuing to influence routing decisions and cost structures across multiple commodity lines, the session reflects a broader industry concern about how trade policy is reshaping the economics of global seafood sourcing.<\/p>\n
The session, titled “Seafood Trade in the Tariff Era: An Analysis of Challenges and Opportunities Between the EU and US,”<\/strong> will be led by Richard Barry, Senior Market Analyst and Director of Programs at the National Fisheries Institute, according to the official SEG26 conference programme. The panel is expected to examine how tariff structures are affecting competitive positioning between producing regions, which species are most exposed to pricing volatility, and how buyers and suppliers are adapting their commercial relationships in response.<\/p>\n Tariff structures do not just affect the final price of seafood products in destination markets. They influence which producing regions suppliers prioritise, which species become more or less competitive relative to each other, and how buyers negotiate contracts with suppliers who face cost uncertainty at the origin end.<\/p>\n For European buyers who source from multiple regions, including Asia, Africa, and South America, tariff differentials between those regions have always been a factor in sourcing decisions. The current environment has made those differences more volatile, and the expectation of further policy changes has made buyers more cautious about committing to long-term supply agreements without pricing flexibility clauses.<\/p>\n The session will cover the current state of EU-US seafood trade flows and how they have shifted over the past 18 months, the impact of tariff escalation on specific species categories including whitefish and salmon, sourcing strategies that buyers and suppliers are using to mitigate tariff risk, and the role of certification and traceability requirements as competitive differentiators in a tariff-heavy environment. Program details are subject to change.<\/p>\n The fact that a tariff-focused session is among the most anticipated at SEG26 reflects the degree to which trade policy has become central to how the global seafood industry thinks about supply chain strategy. Businesses that understand the tariff landscape and maintain diversified sourcing relationships are better positioned than those treating trade policy as someone else’s problem.<\/p>\n Holt Seafood’s global partner network, spanning Asia, Africa, and South America, gives the company flexibility to work with buyers on routing and sourcing decisions as trade conditions evolve. The Barcelona team is available to discuss how the tariff environment is affecting sourcing decisions with European buyers ahead of SEG26.<\/p>\n “The businesses that handle trade complexity best are the ones that have invested in understanding it, not just absorbing it.”<\/p><\/blockquote>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Una sesi\u00f3n en Seafood Expo Global 2026 examinar\u00e1 c\u00f3mo la pol\u00edtica arancelaria entre la UE y EE. UU. est\u00e1 remodelando la econom\u00eda del abastecimiento de mariscos, el posicionamiento competitivo y las relaciones proveedor-comprador. Liderada por Richard Barry del Instituto Nacional de Pesca, se espera que el panel cubra c\u00f3mo las estructuras arancelarias est\u00e1n afectando los precios a nivel de especies y qu\u00e9 est\u00e1n haciendo los compradores y proveedores para adaptarse. Con las tensiones comerciales continuando influyendo en las cadenas de suministro globales, la sesi\u00f3n refleja una preocupaci\u00f3n central sobre c\u00f3mo la industria navega en un entorno comercial cada vez m\u00e1s complejo.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1066,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_breakdance_hide_in_design_set":false,"_breakdance_tags":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[49,56,59],"class_list":["post-1005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-industry-news","tag-eu-regulations","tag-supply-chain","tag-industry-standards"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/holtseafood.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/holtseafood.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/holtseafood.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/holtseafood.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/holtseafood.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1005"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/holtseafood.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1005\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1064,"href":"https:\/\/holtseafood.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1005\/revisions\/1064"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/holtseafood.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/holtseafood.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/holtseafood.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/holtseafood.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Why this matters for the industry:<\/h2>\n
What the SEG26 session is expected to address:<\/h2>\n
A broader signal:<\/h3>\n