Posted on 12/22/2004 10:46:50 PM PST by hedgetrimmer
Seafood importers are proposing to pay up to $100 million US to struggling southern U.S. shrimpers if they drop their drive to get tariffs slapped on imports of farmed shrimp from six Asian and South American countries.
Thirty-one of the biggest shrimp importers recently circulated a proposal to consider levying a fee of a few cents on each pound of imports and distributing the money to shrimpers.
"We propose to join in open dialogue with 'like minded' representatives of the domestic harvesting industry to explore methods and structures for helping domestic harvesters," the proposal said. "There remains both a need for and a place for 'wild' harvest product in the market."
Any proposal would need to be agreed upon by all parties - the shrimpers, the exporters and the importers - and be approved by the U.S. Department of Commerce. It looks unlikely that competing interests would line up for that to happen.
The importers propose levying the fee for between three and five years. They believe it could generate between $60 million and $100 million for shrimpers.
Nearly a year ago, a petition was filed to get the U.S. government to impose tariffs on shrimp imports from Brazil, China, Ecuador, India, Thailand and Vietnam.
The trade action came after two years of a rapid price slide for U.S. shrimp, which is mostly caught in the wild as opposed to farm-raised imports. Shrimpers blamed the price drop on the unfair trade practice of selling shrimp below market price, also known as dumping.
The U.S. Department of Commerce and the U.S. International Trade Commission have both ruled in favour of tariffs, which are moving toward a final approval early next year.
"We're not offering to buy these guys out of harm's way; what we're doing is offering these guys a hand during hard times," said Rick Martin, executive director of California-based Red Chamber Co., a large shrimp importer and shrimp breeder. He has backed the proposal.
The importers say their proposal would put money in fishermen's pockets soon, whereas now they will have to wait for the uncertain effects of tariffs and possible payments under U.S. dumping laws.
The Southern Shrimp Alliance, an eight-state group that organized the antidumping petition, remains "open to any reasonable proposal," said Deborah Long, the group's spokeswoman.
But the group maintains that the duties will drive up prices for fishermen.
Do you think its interesting that the shrimp importers are offering to pay the US shrimpers off? Have you heard of it being done this way for any other products?
FYI
Is this an example of "free trade"?
Sounds like a bidding war between two groups of "Honey Dippers."
It's a private subsidy, that may be quite an attractive package for fisherman. I wonder if tobacco manufacturers subsidized farmers awhile back...I know Canada has done that.
I've been eating more shrimp lately, because of the lower cost...It was just recently however, that I started looking at where these shrimp(s) came from...
You can't find American harvested shrimp in the stores...
The farm raised shrimp have very little flavor...The best so far came from Saudi Arabia...How odd is that???
Industry is STILL leaving on a regular basis...Farmers are falling out...Fishermen are about to become extinct...
The insane asylum is being run by the inmates...
BTTT!!!!!!!
When somebody makes a $100MM offer, there can only be two causes: guilt, or certainty that the alternative will be worse.
So the importers aren't white knights....
However, one is inclined to ask why the US shrimpers have not concurrently started "farms" of their own, allowing them to sell at the cheaper price, while also initiating a "value added" campaign to justify higher prices for the 'wild catch.'
Lotta details missing here.
Environmental laws make it impossible to start shrimp farms here.
Many shrimpers have so much capital tied up in their boats, they have none to invest in developing shrimp ponds.
SE Asian shrimp is often contaminated with illegal antibotics and has been banned from certain producers and countries. Some effort by the WTO is underway so that the country of origin labels or cool, is banned so consumers won't know where the product they are consuming is from.
A lot of the equipment and feed for shrimp farms is produced by US companies, so the government on one hand is hearing from some companies to drop the tariffs, and on the other, from the shrimpers, to have tariffs. Our trading system is really broken because it pits Americans against Americans and gives the edge to the foreign producers.
Well, your post settled a lot of the "details" questions I had.
Somehow I should have guessed that EPA had a hand in this.
The deficit exists for one thing and thats although we have fairly free markets, the countries we are trading to do not.
The WTO talks gives lip service to free trade. When it comes down to it, they will give the competitive edge first to the EU, then to "least developed countries" before ever giving anything to the US.
The real problem lies in the fact that the US Congress has abdicated its constitutional duty pertaining to trade, and when they do make trade decisions, they do not represent citizen interests but the global socialist interests of the WTO. In the "mind" of the WTO you cannot treat nationals from other countries different than "your own nationals" (their words). Therefore for the US to comply to WTO rules, we cannot put the interests of our citizens first.
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