Chilean salmon and wine exporters are starting to feel the pinch from the Trump Administration’s increased tariffs. Photo by Taha Samet Arslan/Pexels
Chilean salmon and wine exports to the United States have begun to decline after President Donald Trump imposed greater tariffs on imports.
About 40% of salmon produced in Chile goes to the United States, where it makes up 55% of the market supply. Starting in April, an additional 10% tariff was imposed. At the time, Chile’s industry warned the tariff would cause demand to drop, resulting in about $571 million in annual losses for companies.
Aquaculture companies have already reported weaker financial results.
Ricardo García Holtz, vice president of Salmones Camanchaca, said consumption has become unstable, with “weakened demand due to the new tariffs, which has meant a substantial drop in prices.”
The company reported that in the second quarter, shipments to the United States accounted for 42% of production, down from 47% in the same period of 2024.
Chilean aquaculture firm Blumar. in its second-quarter results, said the price of fresh fillets weighing between 2 and 3 pounds was $5.86 per pound, 4% lower than the previous quarter, “affected in part by the application of tariffs on exports to that market.”
“The 10% tariff imposed by the United States is extremely significant for our industry,” Arturo Clément, president of SalmonChile — an association that represents producers of Atlantic salmon, coho and trout — told UPI.
“Companies are facing this situation in different ways. It is extremely difficult to pass the tariff on to prices because demand is sensitive, and that has forced producers to absorb the cost through reduced margins,” he said.
Even so, he noted that aquaculture companies are trying to redirect shipments to other markets, such as Brazil and Japan.
“Logistics and consumer preferences make a quick shift difficult. The priority is to maintain competitiveness through internal efficiency and productivity improvements,” Clément said.
A similar situation is playing out with Chilean wine.
The United States is the second-largest destination, but the 10% tariff is weighing on sales because it has become more expensive to ship bottles to the country.
The latest report from Wines of Chile, an association that represents wine producers, showed bottled wine shipments to the United States are falling, with a 29.5% drop in July and an 8.3% decline over the past 12 months. The report said this trend is “probably” linked to tariffs imposed by Trump.
Chilean winery Concha y Toro, Latin America’s largest wine producer and one of the world’s leading wine companies, reported in its second-quarter results that U.S. sales fell 8.8% compared with the same period in 2024.
“The increase in the average dollar price/mix (+6.0%) did not offset the 15.1% drop in volume, driven mainly by non-premium segments affected both by the new tariff policy and seasonal promotions seen in the second half of the year,” the report said.
Nicolás Román, an economics professor at the University of the Andes, told UPI that the tariff is having a significant impact on Chilean wine producers, who are considering raising bottle prices.
“With weaker demand, they will want to raise prices, and some of that is already reflected in figures released by the association.”
However, he noted that if U.S. distributors cannot “absorb those higher costs, they will want to look at options from producers in the United States, which could lead to a shift in exports toward the European Union, the United Kingdom, Brazil, China and Canada.”
It is still an uncertain scenario, he added, because “wine-producing countries in Europe, with tariffs higher than Chile’s, will also want to define similar strategies, making it difficult to know what Chile’s final share of the wine market will be.”
