New year, new Trump tariff turmoil, but the seafood sector navigates choppy waters with sales push in other markets, writes Jenny Hjul in this month’s round-up of industry news

We were barely three weeks into the new year when the spectre that haunted 2025, in the shape of US imposed tariff turmoil, loomed large again. For a few days in January much of Europe, including the UK, was facing the prospect of punitive tariffs, on top of those inflicted last year, in Donald Trump’s bid to seize control of Greenland.

Norway’s salmon producers were looking at a potential 40% levy in total if, as threatened, Trump hiked tariffs to an extra 25% in June if Europe did not capitulate to his territorial demands.

This latest crisis appears to have been averted for now, after a deal struck at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, with Trump talked into backing down, not just on his tariff gambit but also on invading Greenland, part of the Kingdom of Denmark, and therefore a Nato member.

For the seafood sector, the apparently successful diplomacy has brought relief, with Norwegian prime minister Jonas Gahr Støre calling it a ‘positive signal’ following fears that Norway’s lucrative US market might collapse.

In Scotland, where salmon exports to the US are subject to an existing 10% tariff, first minister John Swinney warned of the risk of using tariffs as a ‘bargaining chip’.

There is much at stake. For the first half of 2025, Scottish salmon exports to the US were worth £190 million, an increase of 110% compared to the same period in 2024.

The US was also an important growth market for Norway in 2025, even before the introduction last year of 15% tariffs on Norwegian goods, with seafood exports rising by NOK 2.5 billion (£188 million), or 19%, according to the Norwegian Seafood Council.

Although there is some respite now for seafood exporters as the Greenland scare recedes, uncertainty continues to unsettle the markets. The British Chambers of Commerce, reporting just before the Davos deal was announced, said ‘firms appear fatigued after nearly a year of repeated tariff threats, reversals, and escalation’.

Businesses are opting for ‘diversification rather than disengagement’, with nearly half (45%) wanting the UK to prioritise closer trade relationships with other markets, such as the EU and India.

China growth

Scottish salmon producers are already exploring the Indian market in the wake of last year’s free trade deal, with Salmon Scotland working closely with the UK government and Indian partners to ensure ‘premium salmon reaches more tables across India,’ said chief executive Tavish Scott.

France remains the biggest export destination for Scottish salmon but sales to China are increasing, up 75% to £74 million in the first half of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024, according to HMRC figures.

Norway, too, sold more salmon to China last year, with exports up 59%, valued at NOK 8.1 billion (£608 million), and volume at 90,906 tonnes, 99% higher than the previous year, reported Fish Farming Expert.

Christian Chramer, chief executive of the Norwegian Seafood Council, said the increase was ‘due to strong growth in demand, falling prices and the fact that the Chinese no longer just buy large salmon over six kilos, but also smaller sizes’.

Trump’s tariffs, said Chramer, speaking shortly before the Greenland tariff threat, ‘created a lot of noise and turmoil for Norwegian seafood exports’ last year, but the US market is ‘very important for Norwegian seafood, and the potential for further growth remains high’.

Looking ahead

Looking ahead, DNB, the world’s largest seafood bank, expects a robust salmon market in 2026, Intrafish reported.

‘We believe in continued growth and further consolidation, and our customers are largely the ones acquiring other companies,’ said Anne Hvistendahl, head of seafood banking at DNB, which had seafood lending exposure of NOK 101 billion (£7.6 billion) at the end of the third quarter in 2025.

‘About half of the increase comes from higher production and half from greater investment needs in the industry,’ she added. Spending will be driven partly by increased production in closed-containment systems at sea — which are far more expensive than open cages — and by longer production cycles on land, she told Intrafish.

Development offshore in Norway may also accelerate following the government’s decision this month to allocate larger areas for offshore aquaculture, instead of allocating individual locations.

Whoever is allocated an area will be given responsibility for developing it, preparing an area plan and carrying out an impact assessment that covers the entire area, Fish Farming Expert reported.

In Scotland, the government announced an extension of marine planning zones out to 12 nautical miles last year, in theory laying the regulatory foundation for future offshore salmon farming.

Regulatory obstacles

But regulatory obstacles continue to block growth and the move to more sustainable, environmentally friendly locations, producers claim.

Talking to Fish Farming Expert’s end of year ‘Looking back, thinking ahead’ series, Scottish Sea Farms’ Anne Anderson said progress on reform had been slow, ‘with duplication between environmental regulation and planning consent creating unnecessary complexity’.

Current spatial constraints, she said, ‘originally intended to encourage relocation to higher-energy sites, do not always reflect the real environmental impact of modern salmon farming and can limit growth in the very locations best suited to it’.

Both Anderson and Mowi Scotland boss Ben Hadfield blamed the bad press around salmon farming for stifling the sector’s expansion.

‘The negative narrative against salmon farming and the activist pressure… creates a sort of lurch to more and more regulation,’ said Hadfield.

Anderson agreed that, ‘despite strong environmental performance, the industry often struggles to have evidence properly recognised, with opinion too easily treated as fact. This has slowed regulatory reform and, in some cases, prevented changes that could help address the very challenges critics raise, while also supporting responsible growth.’

Elsewhere, activist pressure has not just hampered growth but reversed the salmon sector’s previously good fortunes. In British Columbia, falling production has seen salmon imports in Canada increase sharply, according to Salmon Business.

A report by the Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance this month found that farm-raised salmon production in BC – historically the country’s largest salmon farming region – has fallen by more than 40% since 2015, following policy and regulatory constraints. Over the same period, the value of Canada’s salmon imports has more than doubled.

The sector is disappointed that prime minister Mark Carney has so far remained silent on the federal government’s plans, introduced by his predecessor Justin Trudeau, to transition away from netpen salmon farming in BC by 2029.

CAIA president Tim Kennedy told Intrafish: ‘We’re very discouraged again. We were really driving for clarity by the end of the year [2025] and yet we don’t have any. It continues to be a very kind of grey area and no decision has been made.’

He added that, with the longest coastline in the world, Canada’s seafood farming sector has massive, largely untapped potential.

Ode cracks the code

Finally, in happier news for fish farmers, a Norwegian cod producer, not a fishing company, has become the largest single supplier of Norwegian cod for the first time.

In 2025, Ode accounted for around 65% of the total farmed cod market of 15,493 tonnes, and almost 30% of combined wild and farmed fresh cod exports of 36,704 tonnes as quota cuts continued to reduce wild-caught volumes.

The company, said chief executive Ola Kvalheim, has cracked the code on how to farm cod with a low feed factor, high survival, and rapid growth.

Keep up to date with the industry’s top stories, all in our next news review.