New Delhi: After the imposition of 50% tariffs by the US, India’s exports of marine products to the country, which has traditionally been the single-largest export destination for India, have decreased, with exporters even projecting a 75% year-on-year fall in shipments in September.

At the moment, data of country-specific exports for September are yet to be available officially, but the fall in marine products exports to the US, which had 35% share, is expected to pull down overall shipment in FY26, said exporters, reported Financial Express.

“Shrimp exports are expected to fall in the second half of the current fiscal, after the US imposed effective duties of close to 60% on India’s shipment from August 27,” said Ajay Srivastava, co-founder, Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI).

Ever since the imposition of the tariffs by the US, Indian exporters have been struggling to deal with the losses sustained as a result of the move. While external affairs minister S. Jaishankar met US secretary of state Marco Rubio in Kuala Lumpur on October 27 on the sidelines of the Asean and East Asia Summit, India and the US still don't have a bilateral trade agreement.

According to GTRI, exports of fish, crustaceans etc. rose to $2.7 billion during April-August 2025-26, an increase of over 15% on year. But shipment to the US rose by only 2.7% to $859 million, with the slowdown in exports to the country being due to tariff.

India’s shrimp export volumes are expected to decline by 15%-18% in the present fiscal, owing to the tariffs imposed by the US, rating firm Crisil Ratings has said.

The US accounted for 32.4% of shrimp exports in the last financial year, according to a GTRI brief. From paying no tariff at all, Indian shrimp in the US now have to pay hefty tariffs.

According to industry officials, the seafood exports have suffered because the effective duties imposed by the US have been hiked to 59.71% including countervailing (5.76%) and anti-dumping duties (3.96%) along with a 50% tariff announced for India by President Donald Trump.

Earlier, analysis by GTRI had found that the impact of the proposed tariff would be much higher on labour-intensive goods and Indian manufacturing.  It had correctly predicted that the levels would be higher than 50%, nearing 60% for some sectors after the new tariffs are enforced.

The bulk of India’s seafood exports to the US is ‘Vannamei Shrimp’.

As a result of the tariffs imposed by the US, Indian seafood is now at a major disadvantage when compared to competitor countries such as Ecuador (15%), Vietnam (20%), and Thailand (19%) tariff.

Seafood exporters from India are now exploring other markets including Australia, European Union (EU), southeast, West Asian regions.

“We are trying to find alternative markets including the EU, China, Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia for boosting exports,” said Alex K Ninan, vice president, Seafood Exporters Association of India, reported Financial Express.

Earlier, with the tariff burden now standing at nearly Rs. 600 crore on about 2,000 containers, Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu who is also an ally of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had sought the Union government’s intervention to alleviate the distress that the export crisis has caused in the state.

The trade tariffs have reportedly cost Andhra Pradesh approximately Rs 25,000 crore in shrimp exports, with government officials saying that about 50% orders were cancelled.

In separate letters to Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal and fisheries minister Rajeev Ranjan Singh, Naidu sought relief in the goods and services tax, and extending the Union government’s financial packages to Andhra’s shrimp farmers to indemnify them against the losses. He also suggested looking for markets beyond the US.

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