The global economy can provide bargain prices for American consumers. Yet when unfair trade masquerades as free trade in flagrant shrimp "dumping" practices designed to eliminate competition from the United States, it's a losing proposition for not just those Americans who catch those tasty marine crustaceans for a living, but for those Americans who buy them for food.
The Department of Commerce took a positive step to even the playing field Tuesday, setting necessary, punitive new tariffs against China and Vietnam for their repeated violations of U.S. trade laws against shrimp dumping. Additional tariffs could be imposed against shrimp exports from Thailand, India, Brazil and Ecuador later this month.
As Kris Wise reported in Wednesday's Post and Courier, the Commerce Department issued the tariffs against China and Vietnam after reviewing the results of a nearly yearlong investigation which showed that hundreds of millions of dollars of farm-raised shrimp from those nations were "dumped" in the United States. "Dumping" is selling large volumes of a product at a loss to drive out competitors who price their product for profit.
The shrimping business in China, Vietnam and some other nations is heavily subsidized by their governments, and in some cases, even by the World Bank and foreign aid from the United States. With the wholesale price of a pound of shrimp in this country falling from $5 to $3.50 in the last five years, due largely to dumping, the U.S. shrimping industry, including shrimpers based in the Charleston area, inevitably has taken a major hit.
And now that Washington is taking action to restrain dumping, shrimp importers warn that the price of shrimp will take a major climb. Yet while the wholesale price has dropped dramatically in recent years, the price of shrimp in restaurants has risen, according to Food Beat Inc.
As for the fear that increased tariffs on shrimp imports will produce increased prices for the public, Deborah Long of the Southern Shrimp Alliance recently told us: "Consumers never benefited from the dumping, so we don't think they will be harmed by it ending."
That could be an overly optimistic assumption. But it also would be overly optimistic to assume that shrimp dumpers, after decimating the U.S. competition, would resist the urge to drive up their prices once they cornered the market.
Maximizing the benefits of free trade requires enforcing fair trade regulations. So does allowing U.S. shrimpers to have a fair chance against global competition.
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