Opinion: To create sustainable seafood industries, the United States needs a better accounting of imports and exports

Global seafood trade nearly doubled in recent decades, fueled by decreasing transportation costs, advances in preservation and processing technologies, and open trade policies and is now among the most highly traded commodities (1). The United States is currently the world’s top seafood importer and among the top five exporters (2). It is often quoted that 90% of seafood consumed in the United States is imported, implying only 10% is of domestic origin. Over the past decade, this statistic has been widely shared and highlighted with more than 60 news articles quoting it annually since 2014 (SI Appendix, Fig. S1), and it is increasingly used to support proposed policy changes. In recent years, the former US Secretary of State, current US Secretary of Commerce, and members of Congress have all cited the number to call for new policy measures addressing seafood sustainability and dependence on foreign seafood (Fig. 1).

However, we argue that far more than 10%, likely 35–38%, of seafood consumed in the United States is of domestic origin. Precise estimates are difficult because of complex supply chains: for instance, some seafood caught in the United States is exported for processing and imported again under a different trade code for consumption in the United States. Such globalized supply chains are commonplace with many products relying on numerous foreign inputs and crossing international borders multiple times. For example, beef production between the United States and Mexico can involve multiple exchanges of calves, adults, and final products (3). These counterintuitive patterns are created by low tariffs and transportation costs that allow producers to optimize for favorable interest rates …

↵¹To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: jgephart{at}sesync.org.