In a small skiff off the coast of Kennebunk, Chris Weltch and his 8-year-old son Calvin pull a lobster trap.
As the cage breaks the surface of the water, they’re greeted with a mess of legs, antennas and snapping claws.
"I told you there would be five or six!" Calvin said to his father as he opened the trap and started measuring the crustaceans.
Chris started hauling lobster when he was even younger than Calvin. Now he’s teaching his son everything he knows — from how to notch tails to the ins-and-outs of running a business.
But the economics of lobster fishing, Chris said, have been more uncertain in the past year than they’ve ever been in his over 25 years on the water, due to the ongoing trade war with Canada.
“It's a lot of worry when you lay your head down on the pillow at night,” he said.
In July, President Donald Trump announced 50% tariffs on a range of Canadian products. Last week, Canada responded with retaliatory tariffs on over $27 billion worth of American goods — including both fresh and frozen seafood.
But it took only two days for the Canadian Department of Finance to strike seafood from the list after hearing from leaders in the industry. As of Aug. 28, it’s the only class of goods Canada walked back on tariffs.
That's because leaders of the Canadian seafood met with government officials to warn of "broader economic harms.”
“Ultimately, a message that did get through to the Canadian government is that this sector is very fragile and it is unique in the cross-border trade," said Patrice McCarron, executive director of the Maine Lobsterman’s Association, an advocacy group for the state’s heritage industry.
Both McCarron and other members of the lobster industry say if the tariffs had gone through, they would disrupt that market overnight, putting significant downward pressure on the price paid to lobstermen.
For decades, the U.S. and Canada have shared a bilateral trade system that takes advantage of the countries’ different fishing seasons and ability to process seafood.
Lobsters from Canada are typically caught in the spring and late fall. Maine’s season peaks in the late summer and early fall.
Both countries rely on cross-border processors — facilities that break down large amounts of lobster into products like tails and frozen or cooked meat — during their peak seasons.
Now is the time Maine typically exports more than half of its annual lobster landings to Canadian processors. That’s more than $237 million worth of live lobster from Maine Canada imported last year.
If it was taxed at the 25% tariff Canada was threatening, processors there would likely stop buying.
Curt Brown said he hopes that never happens. He's the owner of Bold Coast Seafood in Prospect Harbor, which has run out of the historic Stinson Cannery since 2025.
Inside the facility, Brown oversees the storage of thousands of pounds of live lobster in what looks like an Olympic swimming pool full of cold seawater.
Right now, the company acts a storage facility for live lobster, but Brown said he hopes to open a seafood processing facility in the same complex later this year.
"We’re very limited in terms of processing capacity here in Maine. Historically Canada has been where lobsters go to get processed," he said.
Brown said he understands the American tariffs on Canadian seafood are meant to force the domestic processing industry back to the U.S. But he said it would take the U.S. decades to replace the level of infrastructure Canada has built.
“We can't flick that switch overnight," he said. "And ultimately, even if we could flick that switch on tomorrow, we would need 10-15 more of these facilities that we're sitting in right now to handle the volume that is normally processed up in Canada. “
Back on his boat, lobsterman Chris Welch said he’s already been operating on razor-thin margins all summer due to inflation on fuel, bait and fishing gear. He said many lobstermen won't be able to afford prices going much higher.
“You'll see a lot of guys tie the boats up," he said while looking out to sea. "They won't be able to afford to go, and that might even push people out of the industry. You know, we don't want to be the sidebar in a trade dispute that we have no control over.”
Even though Canada dropped its levy on U.S. seafood before it took effect, people in the industry here say the market uncertainty from on-again, off-again tariffs is still being felt on the docks by working families.
