The department's decision was another victory for American shrimpers, who have argued for years that foreign countries were illegally dumping shrimp into the United States. But critics immediately accused the Bush administration of slapping "a new food tax" on American consumers.

The shrimp case is one of the largest anti-dumping trade actions ever and comes on the heels of the Commerce Department's decision earlier this month to place duties on shrimp from China and Vietnam.

"We're very happy with this," said Eddie Gordon, president of the Southern Shrimp Alliance and a Mount Pleasant seafood processor. "We said six countries were dumping, and they found all six were guilty of that."

Thailand, the largest exporter of shrimp to the U.S., faces duties of up to 10.3 percent, the Commerce Department said. Companies in Ecuador face duties of as much as 9.4 percent, India 27.5 percent, and Brazil 67.8 percent.

In all, the six countries provide about 75 percent of the shrimp Americans eat.

"I hope that the shrimpers who brought this case will feel vindicated," said James Jochum, assistant commerce secretary for import administration.

One thing is clear: The shrimp trade fight is making waves, here and a world away.

Shrimp from China that would have gone to the United States has flooded Chinese markets in recent weeks, causing prices there to tumble.

Thailand has hinted about possible retaliation against U.S. soybean farmers, who sell huge volumes to shrimp-producing countries.

Meanwhile, prices for frozen shrimp in the United States have risen somewhat, though prices for other kinds of shrimp have barely budged, said Rutledge Leland of Carolina Seafoods in McClellanville.

"The shrimpers are still kind of discouraged because they haven't seen much change at their level," Leland said.

While American shrimpers welcomed the Commerce Department's move, critics said foreign shrimp-producers were being punished unfairly.

"These four countries are not dumping shrimp in the U.S.," said Wally Stevens, chairman of the Shrimp Task Force, which represents seafood distributors and restaurants.

Most foreign shrimp are raised on large farms, while most domestic shrimp are caught by fishermen in trawlers. Stevens said farming simply is more efficient than trawling. "They are efficiently producing a high-quality product, and the U.S. industry has failed to compete effectively with these imports," Stevens said.

Stevens said the Bush administration was "imposing a new food tax on millions of Americans that will do nothing to help the shrimp industry except line the pockets of a few shrimpers. It's a classic case of unnecessary, undeserved and unwise protectionism."

Still, the tariffs on Brazil, Ecuador, India and Thailand are far less than what the shrimp industry requested in its petition six months ago.

"We think they underestimate the seriousness of the violations," Gordon said.

Shrimp has become the most popular seafood in the United States, eclipsing tuna in 2002. Americans eat about 1 billion pounds of shrimp a year, twice as much as in 1980.

Americans eat an average of 3.2 pounds a year.

But prices for shrimp have declined with the rise of massive shrimp farms in Asia and South America.

Gordon said wholesale shrimp prices today are less than they were in the 1960s. "This is not the result of efficient production but unfair competition."

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