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Shares of shrimp feed companies Avanti Feeds and Apex Frozen Foods skidded up to 18% on Thursday, after U.S. President Donald Trump announced reciprocal tariffs on as many as 60 countries, including a sweeping 26% tariff on Indian imports.Avanti Feeds slumped 18.3% to Rs 727, while Apex Frozen Foods dropped as much as 7.7% to Rs 199.25 on the BSE. Coastal Corp, another seafood exporter, also snapped a three-day winning streak, tumbling 9% to Rs 36.05. The losses come as investors react to concerns over the impact of fresh U.S. tariffs on India’s seafood export sector.Trump, in an announcement late Wednesday, held up a chart detailing the new tariff structure, stating that India imposed 52% tariffs on U.S. imports, including “currency manipulation and trade barriers.” In response, the U.S. will now impose a “discounted reciprocal tariff” of 26% on Indian exports, including seafood products.The sell-off reflects investor concerns over the heavy export dependence of these firms on the U.S. market. As of the December quarter, 69% of Avanti Feeds' total revenue came from North America, while Apex Frozen Foods derived 64% of its export revenue from the region in FY24, according to their investor presentations.“Being an export-oriented sector, any slowdown in consumption in key markets like the U.S., EU, and Southeast Asia will have an adverse impact on India’s shrimp exports,” Apex Frozen Foods had noted in its Q3FY25 investor report.The U.S. is India’s biggest shrimp export market, accounting for $2.4 billion out of $5.6 billion in total shrimp exports. India supplies 40% of the U.S. shrimp market, with a significant share of its shipments processed in Latin America before reaching American consumers.The broader seafood industry could take a hit as well. According to Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI), India’s fish, meat, and processed seafood sector—worth $2.58 billion in exports—faces a 27.83% tariff differential under Trump’s new policy, making Indian shrimp significantly less competitive, according to PTI.India shipped 1.73 million tonnes of seafood worth Rs 63,969 crore ($8.09 billion) in 2022-23, with frozen shrimp as the top export item. The U.S. and China were the largest buyers of Indian seafood.With shrimp farms—primarily located in Andhra Pradesh—reliant on U.S. demand, the latest tariffs could pressure margins and hurt earnings for Indian seafood exporters in the coming quarters.Also read | Trump tariff hike hits Dalal Street: 4 sectors facing the biggest impact, global brokerages decode(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of the Economic Times)

President Donald Trump declared on Wednesday a 10 per cent baseline tax on imports from all countries and higher tariff rates on dozens of nations that run trade surpluses with the United States, threatening to upend much of the architecture of the global economy and trigger broader trade wars. Trump, aged 78 years, said a 34 per cent tax on imports from China, a 26 per cent on India, 20 per cent tax on imports from the European Union, 25 per cent on South Korea, 24 per cent on Japan and 32 per cent on Taiwan. However, a White House annex outlining future reciprocal tariff rates showed different figures for at least 14 economies compared to the charts presented earlier. In the annex, India’s rate was listed as 27%.Trump declared a national economic emergency to launch the tariffs, expected to produce hundreds of billions in annual revenues. Read More: Trump's 27% tariffs put pressure on India. Is New Delhi ready for the impact?&mdash; USTradeRep (@USTradeRep) Trade taxes on India:A flat 27% tariff was imposed on all goods being exported by India to the United States, amidst reciprocal tariffs in the range of 10%-49% unveiled by Trump for other countries.The United States imposes a 2.5% tariff on passenger vehicle imports, while India imposes 70%, the White House said in a statement. Apples are allowed to enter U.S. duty free, but India imposes 50% duty on U.S. apples coming in to India, while rice attracts 2.7% in U.S., in India it is at 80%.On networking switches and routers, the United States imposes a 0% tariff, but India levies higher rates 10-20%, the statement added.India's benchmark indexes opened lower on Thursday after U.S. President Donald Trump slapped a 26% reciprocal tariff on imports from the South Asian nation, a level that caught analysts by surprise.The Nifty 50 was down 0.78% at 23,150.3 in pre-open trade as of 09:08 a.m. IST, while the BSE Sensex fell 1.05% to 75,811.12. How were reciprocal tariffs calculated?Reciprocal tariffs are calculated as the tariff rate necessary to balance bilateral trade deficits between the US and each of their trading partners. This calculation assumes that persistent trade deficits are due to a combination of tariff and non-tariff factors that prevent trade from balancing. Tariffs work through direct reductions of imports.Reciprocal tariff rates range from 0 percent to 99 percent, with unweighted and import-weighted averages of 20 percent and 41 percent.To conceptualize reciprocal tariffs, the tariff rates that would drive bilateral trade deficits to zero were computed. While models of international trade generally assume that trade will balance itself over time, the United States has run persistent current account deficits for five decades, indicating that the core premise of most trade models is incorrect."While individually computing the trade deficit effects of tens of thousands of tariff, regulatory, tax and other policies in each country is complex, if not impossible, their combined effects can be proxied by computing the tariff level consistent with driving bilateral trade deficits to zero. If trade deficits are persistent because of tariff and non-tariff policies and fundamentals, then the tariff rate consistent with offsetting these policies and fundamentals is reciprocal and fair," a statement of United States Trade Representative. What is the maths behind the calculation?Consider an environment in which the U.S. levies a tariff of rate τ_i on country i and ∆τ_i reflects the change in the tariff rate. Let ε<0 represent the elasticity of imports with respect to import prices, let φ>0 represent the passthrough from tariffs to import prices, let m_i>0 represent total imports from country i, and let x_i>0 represent total exports. Then the decrease in imports due to a change in tariffs equals ∆τ_i*ε*φ*m_i<0. Assuming that offsetting exchange rate and general equilibrium effects are small enough to be ignored, the reciprocal tariff that results in a bilateral trade balance of zero satisfies:Parameter SelectionTo calculate reciprocal tariffs, import and export data from the U.S. Census Bureau for 2024. Parameter values for ε and φ were selected. The price elasticity of import demand, ε, was set at 4.Recent evidence suggests the elasticity is near 2 in the long run (Boehm et al., 2023), but estimates of the elasticity vary. To be conservative, studies that find higher elasticities near 3-4 (e.g., Broda and Weinstein 2006; Simonovska and Waugh 2014; Soderbery 2018) were drawn on. The elasticity of import prices with respect to tariffs, φ, is 0.25. The recent experience with U.S. tariffs on China has demonstrated that tariff passthrough to retail prices was low (Cavallo et al, 2021).FindingsThe reciprocal tariffs were left-censored at zero. Higher minimum rates might be necessary to limit heterogeneity in rates and reduce transshipment. Tariff rates range from 0 to 99 percent. The unweighted average across deficit countries is 50 percent, and the unweighted average across the entire globe is 20 percent. Weighted by imports, the average across deficit countries is 45 percent, and the average across the entire globe is 41 percent. Standard deviations range from 20.5 to 31.8 percentage points.

According to the new U.S. trade policy announced by President Donald Trump on Wednesday, the amount a country pays in tariffs will depend on the type of goods being exported and their origin, says GTRI founder Ajay Srivastava.Firstly, some goods will face zero tariffs, these include essential and strategic items such as pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, copper and energy products like oil, gas, coal and LNG.Only the non-U.S. portion of products having 20 percent or more U.S.-made content will be taxed. Also, low-value shipments under USD 800, which mainly cover e-commerce orders, will be taxed at old tariff rates.Secondly, a 25 percent tariff will apply to key industrial sectors, such as aluminium, steel, automobiles, and auto parts, and will apply to most countries.For most other goods, there will now be a two-layered tariff system. All imports are first subject to a 10 percent baseline tariff starting April 5, 2025. Then, beginning April 9, 2025, certain countries will face country-specific tariffs. Country-specific tariffs will replace baseline tariffs after April 9th.Starting April 9, goods from India could be subject to tariffs as high as 27 percent. However, pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, copper, and energy products remain exempt from any new tariffs."The actual tariff a country faces depends on what it's exporting and how its trade practices align with U.S. economic and national security interests," says Ajay SrivastavaExecutive Order-Sec. 2. The Reciprocal Tariff Policy reads, "The additional ad valorem duty on all imports from all trading partners shall start at 10 percent and shortly thereafter, the additional ad valorem duty shall increase for trading partners enumerated in Annex I to this order at the rates set forth in Annex I to this order. These additional ad valorem duties shall apply until such time as I determine that the underlying conditions described above are satisfied, resolved, or mitigated". (ANI)