Future of Fish importation coming from China, Central America

RyanScanner

Fire Eel
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Apr 24, 2024
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This is the type of thinking that the fearmongers want us to have.

Today, things are fine. Live in today.

Its hard to go much farther into this discussion without taking into the direction of a political conversation, which has no place on a fish forum. And even then, it becomes a "what if" debate, discussing what "might" happen and what we should do if our fears or hopes come true.
It’s not an American political thing it’s tariffs in general. It happens when a GST introduced too. Just another excuse to squeeze people out of more money, the politics is the method used to sell it to the population being squeezed.
 
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dogofwar

Potamotrygon
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Jan 3, 2006
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Things ARE fine today. The United States has an economy that is literally the "envy of the world" and "The American economy has left other rich countries in the dust" according to The Economist - very low unemployment, low inflation, booming stock market, record oil production, and strong growth: https://www.economist.com/special-report/2024-10-19

That said, radical changes to the current path - like a tariff war and/or disruption to global trade through issues with the Panama Canal - could change course. We'll just have to see.

As others have posted, exports of (aquarium) fish from Central America are negligible. New tariffs likely wouldn't change that. Seafood prices could be higher (for farmed shrimp and other items sources from there, though).

Who knows on imported Asian fish. What WOULD be affected though, is cost of most of our aquarium supplies - filters, heaters, etc. - almost all of which is sourced from China. And, of course, ALL the stuff sourced from China (90% of Wal-Mart, Dollar Tree, etc.) would be more expensive with new tariffs.

We'll just have to wait and see...


This is the type of thinking that the fearmongers want us to have.

Today, things are fine. Live in today.

Its hard to go much farther into this discussion without taking into the direction of a political conversation, which has no place on a fish forum. And even then, it becomes a "what if" debate, discussing what "might" happen and what we should do if our fears or hopes come true.
 

Omrit

Plecostomus
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Nov 13, 2015
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I always hear "America is the richest country! Amazing economic growth" yet not a single thing at the store is made in America. I am not trying to make a political statement but it is strange when I think about it. Idk the economy just seems fake and weird in America. Does not really make much sense to me.

Maybe it is time to take breeding these fish more seriously instead of collecting them in the wild and having our heaters and such made in the country they are going to be used in? That just seems logical to me and would be a net good for the fish in question.
 
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dogofwar

Potamotrygon
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Jan 3, 2006
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The US economy has largely shifted to one based on services vs. manufacturing (or agriculture) because there is lower cost labor elsewhere. Because it makes sense - for national security among other reasons - to have certain manufacturing in the US, laws like the Inflation Reduction Act and CHIPS and Science Act have invested in semiconductor (computer chip) and other manufacturing here in the US and resulted in the gain of over 700,000 new manufacturing jobs in the US over the last 4 years (vs. a loss of 300,000 the prior 4).

If tariffs are high enough, it might make sense to bring aquarium equipment manufacture back to the US. Stuff will be more expensive but *possibly* higher quality. We'll see.

I always hear "America is the richest country! Amazing economic growth" yet not a single thing at the store is made in America. I am not trying to make a political statement but it is strange when I think about it. Idk the economy just seems fake and weird in America. Does not really make much sense to me.

Maybe it is time to take breeding these fish more seriously instead of collecting them in the wild and having our heaters and such made in the country they are going to be used in? That just seems logical to me and would be a net good for the fish in question.
 

Hybridfish7

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Dec 4, 2017
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I always hear "America is the richest country! Amazing economic growth" yet not a single thing at the store is made in America. I am not trying to make a political statement but it is strange when I think about it. Idk the economy just seems fake and weird in America. Does not really make much sense to me.

Maybe it is time to take breeding these fish more seriously instead of collecting them in the wild and having our heaters and such made in the country they are going to be used in? That just seems logical to me and would be a net good for the fish in question.
No one regularly imports from central america. At this point the only ones that come in are smuggled. And when we did regularly import, it was just to get broodstock, because as you know most of the things down there are easy to breed. The problem is that while people breed them in their home aquaria, no one distributes them, and unfortunately it is a very niche market, hence why tuic and cota stopped selling ca cichlids as much, or as often.

In my opinion it is mostly a matter of marketing, because all we hear with pure species is "x central american cichlid is super aggressive and breeds so much" and no one wants it unless it grows two feet long. But then you'll have hybrid monstrosities made from the same fish that people are able to slap "fun" names/superstitions of being "lucky" onto, bred into crazy shapes and colors that are able to be upsold at hundreds of dollars just for the sake of them being a novelty.
 
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