Keith Lusher 02.27.25
For years, Louisiana’s fishermen have watched overseas seafood flood our markets at rock-bottom costs. Now, that may lastly change. Congressman Clay Higgins is pushing to “Make American Seafood Nice Once more” by asking President Trump to slap tariffs of as much as 100% on imported shrimp and crawfish from China, Vietnam, and different international locations.
As somebody who’s watched our native seafood trade battle towards low-cost imports, I can inform you this transfer is lengthy overdue. Our industrial fishermen are preventing an uphill battle towards overseas seafood that’s typically bought for lower than what it prices them to gas up a shrimp boat.
The numbers don’t lie. Louisiana shrimpers noticed their catch worth drop from $130.6 million in 2021 to only $60.2 million in 2023. That’s cash taken straight out of U.S. fishermen’s pockets. Throughout the Gulf Coast, it’s the identical story – the entire worth of U.S. shrimp hauls fell from $521.8 million to $268.7 million in those self same years.
Need to know the way dangerous it’s gotten? At this yr’s Louisiana Shrimp and Petroleum Pageant in Morgan Metropolis, DNA testing confirmed 4 out of 5 distributors had been really serving overseas shrimp – not the native catch prospects thought they had been shopping for.
It will get worse. Whereas different international locations like these within the European Union examine about half of their imported seafood for security, the U.S. solely inspects about 2%. The USDA says imported seafood has failed extra security assessments than every other meals within the final 20 years.
“Our shrimpers and fishermen are getting crushed by overseas seafood that’s closely backed and dumped into our markets,” Higgins wrote to Trump. He’s asking for strict tariffs and more durable testing of imported seafood to degree the enjoying area.
The timing couldn’t be extra vital. Louisiana’s seafood trade is already hurting from final yr’s drought that hit crawfish manufacturing arduous. “A lot of our folks can’t even get new crop loans as a result of they couldn’t repay final yr’s loans,” says Mike Pressure, Louisiana’s Agriculture and Forestry Commissioner.
The Louisiana Shrimp Affiliation is backing Higgins’ push for tariffs. They are saying the flood of low-cost imports isn’t simply hurting our fishermen – it’s threatening our complete lifestyle on the Gulf Coast.
For these of us who care about supporting native fishermen and preserving Louisiana’s seafood trade alive, these tariffs may very well be a game-changer. It’s about time we protected our personal and made American seafood nice once more.
To view the whole letter to the White Home from Clay Higgins click on here.
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