Struggling Valley shrimpers receive good news on new import measures

Shrimp boat crews wait on their boats along the Brownsville Shrimp Basin Thursday, July 11, 2024, as Monsignor Bert Diaz blesses both shrimp boats and crew during the annual Blessing of the Fleet. (Miguel Roberts | The Brownsville Herald)

In an industry where bad news is the norm, shrimpers in Texas and elsewhere in the United States finally have a sliver of good news.

The U.S. International Trade Commission, or ITC, on Tuesday determined that the U.S. shrimp industry is being “materially injured” by imports of frozen warm-water shrimp from Indonesia that the U.S. Department of Commerce says are being sold in this country at less than fair value, and also by shrimp imports from Ecuador, India and Vietnam that the Commerce Department says are being subsidized by the governments of those countries.

As a result of the ITC’s determinations, the Commerce Department will issue “countervailing duty orders on imports of this product from Ecuador, India and Vietnam and an anti-dumping duty order on imports of this product from Indonesia,” the ITC announced Tuesday.

It’s hoped the duties placed on those imports will help stem the unrelenting flood of imports threatening to capsize the U.S. shrimp industry once and for all.

The ITC’s determination follows an Oct. 22 hearing of the commission in Washington D.C. in response to a shrimp industry petition drive spearheaded by the American Shrimp Processors Association, and which the Texas Shrimp Association, or TSA, and other member states of the U.S. Shrimpers Coalition signed onto. At the hearing, representatives from several of the petitioning states offered testimony of the economic harm caused by excessive foreign imports.

Among them was TSA President Chris Londrie, whose family has worked in the shrimping industry for generations. He noted in written testimony that today foreign imports make up 96% of U.S. shrimp consumption.

“So much shrimp is being dumped into the U.S. market, 1.86 billion pounds, that it actually exceeds the average amount consumed by Americans, which is estimated at 1.6 billion pounds,” he said. “This has dramatically caused the price of (wild-caught, domestic) shrimp to drop considerably.”

Excessive foreign imports are the greatest threat facing the shrimping industry in Texas and other shrimp-producing states, Londrie said.

“This problem has sent the Texas shrimp industry into a death spiral with no effective remedy in place,” he said. “The bottom line is that shrimpers, and the entire associated industry across the state of Texas, need a remedy to be able to survive this crisis.”

Londrie cited an ITC report published in 1976 — when imports represented a mere 52% of U.S. consumption — that also concluded that the U.S. shrimp industry was suffering “serious injury” due to the growth of imports, and recommended “import relief in the form of adjustment assistance” for companies affected.

Shrimp boat crews wait on their boats along the Brownsville Shrimp Basin Thursday, July 11, 2024, as Monsignor Bert Diaz blesses both shrimp boats and crew during the annual Blessing of the Fleet. (Miguel Roberts | The Brownsville Herald)

“Fifty years later we are still fighting that same fight,” he said.

The Brownsville-Port Isabel shrimp fleet and associated businesses have been hit as hard as any. Londrie noted that the Cameron County fleet was once 500 boats strong, with the largest harvest of any port on the Gulf coast or in the United States. Today the local fleet has dwindled to 140 boats and is ranked second in the country in terms of value and volume of wild caught shrimp, even while Brownsville-Port Isabel remain the most valuable and largest commercial fishery in the state, he said.

“Each day, the remaining shrimpers are challenged with the decision of whether or not they will be able to stay in business,” Londrie testified.

Maria Barrera-Jaross, TSA executive director, said duties and tariffs imposed in the past obviously haven’t been sufficiently robust to stem the rising tide of cheap foreign imports, though she’s hoping it will be different this time. The ITC determination is potentially good news “in the sense that they hear us,” she said.

“They sided with us,” Barrera-Jaross said. “It’s definitely a good thing.”

Texas shrimpers are fighting the war on other fronts, including trying to expand the reach of wild caught Gulf shrimp into as-yet-untapped markets, and backing proposed federal legislation that would expand the definition of economic disaster to include disaster caused by unfair trade practices, potentially making it possible for fleet owners and other shrimp industry businesses harmed by excessive imports to access disaster relief funding, she said.

Another proposed bill, the Save Our Shrimpers Act, is aimed at prohibiting the World Trade Organization from subsidizing foreign shrimp producers that compete directly against the U.S. shrimp industry, Barrera-Jaross said. Fledgling efforts toward cracking down on restaurants selling foreign shrimp under a domestic label are another step in the right direction, she said.

Time will tell whether the import duties the Commerce Department says it will impose have the desired effect, Barrera-Jaross said.

“If it results in fewer imports coming into the United States ultimately yes, that could be a way for us to benefit,” she said. “Every year they say this is the worst it’s ever been. This is really I think the worst it’s ever been.”

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