US shrimp fishers see Trump tariffs as a lifeline: ‘We’re basically on our knees’ | Fishing

Sandy Najoen has strong opinions about where the best shrimp in the United States is produced.

From the second generation of evil in New Orleans, Ngwin maintains ” [Louisiana] Shrimp Better than shrimp in Florida, shrimp, Mississippi or Texas shrimp. ”Her family moved to the Gulf coast from Vietnam through Jimmy Carter Administration, And her father is like Many of these immigrants To the area, Fisher worked. The company gave Niqin seat in the front row to one of the most abundant seafood sources in the country.

Shrimp flourishes in full water, and Louisiana is the largest Delta on the continent, where fresh water is mixed from the Mississippi River with salt water in the Gulf of Mexico. This is partly due to the huge extension of this delta, the shrimp in Louisiana provides nearly a quarter of all shrimp in the United States, and to provide It is estimated to be 72 meters of a tail of shrimp In 2023 – the largest share of any state.

But things have changed dramatically since the 1980s, when the Nagwin family settled in Louisiana. The demand and prices decreased through Covid-19 pandemic. It caused the devastating range of destructive hurricanes – Laura, Delta, Zita and Eda – Half a billion dollars of losses To the seafood industry in the state since 2020. Naguin hopes that the year 2022 will be a turning point, but then Russia invaded Ukraine, and the diesel price rose, which paid the cost of operating fishing tits. It seems that inflation climbs everywhere else. The sentence price decreased from the shrimp.

All of these factors were taking place alongside another huge change for decades: an increase in the shrimp imported from Asia and South America. He spoke to most shrimp and they will say that this familiar enemy leads the price of shrimp, which makes almost impossible for us the shrimp.

So when Donald Trump announced Comprehensive definitionsAnd it is a step that gave global markets in Disturbance It caused panic among many industries, some American shrimp instead expressed optimism.

“I know that it will affect many other industries. But for us, it is a good thing,” said Aaron Wallace, who helps the shrimp shrimp management. Georgia.

The American shrimp industry is diminished compared to its counterparts in Ecuador, India, Indonesia and Vietnam. In those countries, water farming farms multiply, which led to a wonderful shrimp size. These four countries represent more than 90 % of the shrimp imported to the United States, or about 1.5 billion pounds of shrimp in 2023. This is more than 20 times the amount of shrimp produced in Louisiana.

Wallace added: “In fact, our battle is the shrimp that the farm grew up abroad.” “We are mainly on our knees [due to] What do imports do. “

“The industry that was raised on the farm has created a market where the shrimp is easily available anywhere and everywhere,” continued. “The way we look at the shrimp has changed again a day.”

Today, shrimp is the most widely consumed seafood in the United States, outperform salmon, tuna and tilapia. Like chicken breast, it is a protein that people expect to buy cheaply and regularly. Unlike the children of its corticultural, the locusts of the sea and the crabs, who are usually associated with luxurious holidays, the shrimp is economic and everywhere. It was frequently found in chains lists like Popeyes to all your special offers in SIZZRER, and perhaps formerly Red Sea locusts.

But shrimp licenses and Communplacenes have come at a cost. Consumers often do not realize the fact that most of the shrimp they consume are imported.

Acy Cooper, President of the Louisiana Shrimp and Fourth Jim Association, said the customs tariff provides a chance for us to restore a foothold in the manufacture of local seafood.

“We are losing our local industry,” said Cooper. This prompted Cooper to vote for Trump, in the hope that “America is great again in all sectors”, including Shrimping.

When Cooper grew up in the 1970s, SHRIMPING was a good function, could support the family easily. Later, in the 1980s, when Cooper started for the first time, he can get one dollar per pound of small shrimp and $ 4.50 per pound of big shrimp. But last year, he could barely get one dollar for a pound from the Dockside buyer for his biggest shrimp.

“See, I left the school in the eighth grade and went to work to hunt fish because I earned more money than university graduates at that time,” Cooper said. But his son chose to leave the industry. Cooper said: “He broke the chain in my family.” “He got three children in his family, and he could not make enough to survive.”

“The problem is not cheap imports. The problem is inverse results. Commercial policies This has led to cheap imports “and that other countries benefit from the unlawful practices in the United States.

He has long referred to the fact that many Foreign water farming operations are supported by international financial institutions supported and employed by taxpayers Unpaid work Or by using a ban Antibiotics. From Long’s point of view, these factors allow foreign shrimp suppliers to undermine the prices of local shrimp suppliers.

“When you look at commercial data, you will find that the eighties were the days of this industry,” said Long. “Aquaculture came, and the shrimp was able to compete against it. In the early first decade of the twentieth century, she began to see a flood of imports. This is the place dumping – The sale below fair value – came. “

However, Martin Smith, an economist at Duke University who studies fishing markets and seafood markets, said it is not clear that the broad tariffs based on Trump-kn targeting a wide range of goods-the appropriate tool to treat a flood of cheap shrimp imports.

He pointed out that the US Department of Commerce was already working on it Duties of anti -dumping and cooperationWhich aims to face the impact of dumping and government subsidies, on the largest shrimp importers. Indeed, these duties were showing Modest improvements In previous vessels, prices are paid for shrimp in the dock.

“In principle, the regime had already addressed the aspects of unfair competition,” Smith said. “This additional layer of existing broad definitions says only that we will make it unfair now for the rest of the world.”

Smith also warned that any efforts to support shrimp prices can risk reducing the total demand for shrimp, which will negatively affect the local shrimp.

“There are some real risks in the long run here in using the customs tariff to try to raise the prices of local products … … it can actually push them to be luxurious goods.”

It is still, A long time ago, the Southern Shrimp Alliance praised Trump’s definitions, which she had hoped to put in imports, also recognizing that it would not be a magical bullet for all the issues facing the shrimp.

“It is a short -term procedure that is strongly required to support these men and get them during other seasons while dealing with these regular problems,” said Long said.

But Ngawin remained skeptical if the definitions will help in reality the industry that devoted its entire life.

“I am not enthusiastic about anything Trump does,” Ngwin said. “Although I was broken, I cannot trust that his definitions will help us because I understand the economies of industry.”

She pointed out that the customs tariff can cause a high price of the rope, steel, or even nets, which makes the work of an artery more expensive.

In addition, from the point of view of Nagwin, it is not just cheap imports that drive prices; It is also the fact that there are fewer treatments and distributors in bulk with the unification of the industry, leaving the shrimp with A small space to negotiate on the sidewalks.

Report on Shrimp value chain LouisianaIt was produced for the alliance to restore the coastal Louisiana, recognized this separation, noting that shrimp like Nguyen at the bottom of the value chain that tries to compete with low global prices. Shrimp gets the short end of the stick even when consumers pay more opposite the shrimp in a supermarket or a dinner dish.

This point has long been echoed by the Southern Shrimp alliance.

“While prices collapsed from 2021 to 2023, the industry has lost more than half of its value – import values ​​fell 1.5 billion dollars as well – consumer prices, and the retail price that you will pay in a grocery store, reached record levels,” Long said. “There is a great separation in the market there.”

Nagwan frankly put it.

She said, “The major dogs, the major companies, are the ones that hurt us,” referring to the Deckside buyer, as well as to the network of processors, distributors and retail dealers. “Part of the reason our prices are significantly low is that we are making enough shrimp for all of them to get a dirty rich.”

In her opinion, the definitions will not fix this problem. The destruction witnessed between the shrimp will not be fighting to stay for survival.

By 2023, she indicated that the jumpsies knew that “strokes, heart attacks, excess doses, domestic violence, and children who could not go to college,” said Nagwin. “A full lifestyle has been stripped of us over the past three years without an error on our part.”