The United States Trade in Fish and Fishery Products: Trends, Determinants, and Competitiveness

The United States is the world’s top importer and the eleventh-largest exporter of fish and fishery products, with US$4.5 billion. This study provides a comprehensive analysis of the U.S. trade performance, comparative advantage, and competitiveness in exports, as well as the potential of fish and fishery product exports over the last two decades. Estimates of the gravity model via Poisson Pseudo Maximum Likelihood (PPML) revealed that U.S. exports are significantly influenced by the GDP and population of importing countries, as well as by free trade agreements. Conversely, domestic fish production in importing nations tends to substitute for U.S. exports. The market assessment estimates show that the U.S. had a mixed performance in market utilization with its major trading partners. High performance was observed in countries like Lithuania, the Netherlands, Italy, and Thailand, while share was lost in recent years in South Korea, France, and China. The market utilization rate for the U.S. is close to or slightly higher than the market potential for long-term trading partners, such as Canada and Japan. Revealed Comparative Advantage was used to measure the competitiveness, and the U.S. had a consistent competitiveness in the export of frozen fish (HS 0303), fish fillet and other fish meat (HS 0304), dried/salted/in-brine and smoked fish (HS 0305). For other products, the U.S. had a comparative advantage with a few destinations only. The U.S. can expand its exports through enhancing domestic processing capacity, improving trade facilitation with the EU, strengthening maritime infrastructure, and supporting exporters in meeting international standards.