Irish seafood business The Good Fish Company has ambitious plans to export to the United States later this year.
In March it scooped the best new retail product gong at the Seafood Excellence Awards in Boston for its “Atlantic Salmon with a Guinness sweet honey mustard melt and panko crumb”.
It finalised a distribution deal for a range of products due on the shelves of US supermarkets in September.
Then two weeks later Donald Trump announced his “Liberation Day” tariffs.
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These included a levy on European goods that stood at 20 per cent at the time – though this has since been reduced to 10 per cent, at least during the temporary pause – and the value of the dollar fell.
The Good Fish Company’s managing director, Donagh Good, admitted he was left wondering if the planned expansion into the US market was “a big waste of time”.
Now there is further uncertainty with the European Union’s announcement of a list of €95 billion worth of proposed tariffs on US products, including fish, which would be imposed if trade talks fail.
Bourbon whiskey is on there, a product the Government had successfully lobbied the EU to be excluded from duties previously due to concern over the impact on Irish whiskey producers should the US retaliate.
Agriculture products including cattle, sheep, vegetables, apricots and nuts are on the countermeasure list, as are fish including lobster, cod and salmon.
US aircraft manufacturers would also be targeted in the proposed retaliatory tariffs, something that would have a big impact on Ryanair.
The EU is hoping negotiations with the Trump administration will negate the need for these measures.
Tánaiste Simon Harris told the Dáil this week he wants to see the list “ripped up” as a result of an agreement being reached.
But should the EU’s threatened countermeasures become necessary it will have a wide-ranging impact on Ireland’s economy, businesses and consumers.
And it prompts the question, will an aggressive stance from Brussels put the State at a disadvantage?
“We call it internally a Brexit moment,” said Good of the US tariffs. In common with that previous trade shock, he said, “the world doesn’t stop turning so we need to just kind of hold the line and it will sort itself out. How long it will take, we don’t know.”
The Good Fish Company, which employs 100 people, invested €13 million in recent years including to open its new factory outside Cork, in part with an eye to breaking into the US market.
Good said that market had been an “easy door to walk through up until around three-four months ago and now it’s getting harder and harder because of the uncertainty”.
He said that if fish products got caught up in the trade dispute between the EU and US it would “definitely curtail our expansion plans”.
Irish fish exports to the US are a small part of the overall total of almost €600 million in fish sent worldwide last year.
Brendan Byrne, chief executive of the Irish Fish Processors and Exporters Association, argued that the agri-food industry, including the fish sector, “should have been left off any list of reciprocal tariffs”.
He expressed hope that the Government would lobby Brussels for fish products to be removed from the list.
Is EU retaliation ideal from an Irish perspective? Probably not but then to be part of a bigger bloc also brings protections in other ways as well
— Dan O'Brien
He said Irish fish exports to the US were a “small niche market” but should the US retaliate against EU countermeasures it “will have consequences for processors that have built up this market”.
Byrne put it in a broader context, saying that “the reality is the Irish fishing sector has been very hard hit by successive EU policies, particularly post-Brexit”.
“This is not going to help,” he said.
On the question of whether the approach taken by Brussels puts Dublin at a disadvantage, economist Dan O’Brien suggested that if the Republic had its own independent trade policy, it would “take a position more akin to the UK or South Korea, where it wouldn’t retaliate”.
“But given the EU’s relative strength towards the US there is a view that Europe will retaliate,” said O’Brien.
“Is that ideal from an Irish perspective? Probably not but then to be part of a bigger bloc also brings protections in other ways as well.”
There will be relief in Government that pharmaceuticals have not been targeted by the European Commission as part of the proposed countermeasures.
O’Brien, chief economist with the Institute of International and European Affairs (IIEA), said that “given that the [pharmaceutical] industry is such a big manufacturer here – it’s the biggest exporter by far – that’s a positive”.
The “downside” of the proposed EU measures “obviously, is for Irish consumers. New taxes on products that we buy are not good”, he said.
O’Brien expressed pessimism about the chances of EU-US negotiations, saying: “The US is not going to take away the 10 per cent tariff that’s already been imposed, so the EU will go ahead [with countermeasures]”.
Earlier this week the Department of Finance’s annual progress report suggested that as many as 25,000 fewer jobs would be created in the Republic in the absence of an EU deal with the US to limit the impact of tariffs.
It stated that if the current 10 per cent tariff on US imports from the EU remained in place, growth in the State’s domestic economy would be expected to slow to 2 per cent this year and to 1.75 per cent in 2026 – a cumulative downward revision to growth of 1.5 per cent over two years.
Irish Government ministers are still pinning much of their hopes on the talks with the Trump administration being successful.
They also take solace in the consultation period on EU countermeasures what will allow EU member states to lobby Brussels on individual measures into June, with a number of ministers highlighting this in recent days.
Minister for Agriculture Martin Heydon told the Irish Times that he still hoped the commission could be persuaded to take bourbon, spirits and wine off the list.
“The big point around bourbon is your countermeasure list should in reality hurt them more than it hurts us. But the truth is we export a lot more Irish whiskey than import bourbon into Europe and the same would be the case for French Cognac and others,” he said.
“By putting bourbon on the list, you put our drinks industry in the firing line for countermeasures.”
He said the Government would seek to “look after” the fisheries sector and “make the case” for it as well.
Heydon said the Government would be explaining to EU trade commissioner Maroš Šefčovič and others “the impact that measures on the list will have on Ireland, mindful of the fact that they do have to come up with a list that’s €95 billion, and that’s not simple to do”.
At the same time part of the Government’s response to the threat posed by US tariffs is efforts to help Irish companies diversify their international markets.
Heydon will go on a trade mission to Japan and South Korea next month where he will look to promote the Irish agri-food sector.
He disputed the suggestion that the Commission‘s approach has been aggressive, instead characterising it as “very responsible” and “measured in the face of serious provocation”.
The Minister gave the example of car manufacturing countries such as Germany and Slovakia which have been hurt by the 25 per cent US tariffs on automobiles and steel and aluminium, but said the EU response has been “calm”.
“This is Brexit mark II,” said Heydon.
“We recognise Europe doesn’t want to be in this position and Ireland’s strength is very much at the heart of an EU trading bloc, a really important single market where we have a disproportionately loud voice for the size of our population.”
