Trump trade war gives US producers of a seafood prized in China that sinking feeling
For over two decades, Suquamish tribal member Joshua George has dived into the emerald waters of the Salish Sea looking for an unusually phallic clam that is coveted thousands of kilometres away.
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George is a geoduck diver. Pronounced 'gooey-duck,' the world's largest burrowing clam has been harvested by George's indigenous ancestors in tidelands in the United States' Pacific northwest since before Europeans arrived.
It has lately become a delicacy in China, with Washington state sending 90 per cent of its geoducks there, creating a niche yet lucrative American seafood export market.
But the escalating
trade war between the US and China is now crippling an entire industry that hand-harvests geoducks, leaving divers in Washington state without work, exporters in Seattle, the state's biggest city, without business and Chinese aficionados with fewer of the prized clams.
A bag of harvested geoducks on a boat in Washington state. Photo: AP
'It's the first time in 24 years where I don't know when or if we'll be going back to work or if I have to find another job or what we're going to do,' George said.
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US President Donald Trump's tariff-driven economic feud with China, which dates back to his first term in office, swiftly resumed in February within weeks of him taking back the White House.
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