Canada’s largest lobster fishery set to begin amid threat of Trump tariffs

Thousands of fishermen are preparing to harvest Canada’s most lucrative lobster fishing grounds off Nova Scotia’s southwest coast, but they have a new worry this year: the prospect of tariffs being imposed by the United States. Nova Scotia exported 51,000 tonnes of lobster valued at more than $1 billion last year, by far the most in the country, and the U.S. is the province’s biggest market, with about 60 per cent of exported lobster landing in that country each year. As a result, the stakes are high if U.S. president-elect Donald Trump makes good on his campaign promise to impose duties of between 10 per cent and 20 per cent on all imported goods. Such a tariff could cost the Canadian economy about $30 billion per year in total, according to a Canadian Chamber of Commerce report in October. Trump’s inauguration is still a couple of months away — he officially takes office on Jan. 20 — but fishermen are trying to take the threat in stride while preparing for the season to open on ...