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U.S. imposes tariffs on shrimp

By Charles Homans
Knight Ridder Newspapers

ALAN HAWES / AP Jerome Bailey sorts shrimp at Wando Shrimp in Mount Pleasant, S.C. Southern shrimpers and processors led the fight for tariffs on imported shrimp, claiming their prices have been driven down by the dumping of cheap, farm-raised shrimp on the U.S. market.

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WASHINGTON — Some Chinese shrimp exporters will have to pay discouragingly hefty tariffs of more than 100 percent if they want their products to appear on American dinner tables, the Commerce Department ruled yesterday.

Commerce's International Trade Commission also placed lower-than-expected tariffs on imports from Vietnam in a move likely to relieve pressure on the U.S. import market and prevent a surge in retail prices.

The decisions were seen as a victory by the domestic shrimp industry, which has suffered in recent years as cheap shrimp imports from Latin America and Asia have increased supplies and dropped prices in the U.S.

Foreign exporters and American importers argue that imported shrimp — which are farm-raised rather than netted as most U.S. shrimp are — simply are produced more efficiently. American shrimpers claim that their competitors are cheating by dumping their product: selling it below cost to drive U.S. producers out of business.

"The United States is the most open market for shrimp in the world, but we cannot let Chinese and Vietnamese shrimpers violate the rules of free trade to get ahead of their competition," Eddie Gordon, the president of the Southern Shrimp Alliance, said in a statement yesterday.

Last December, the alliance — which represents shrimpers in eight Southern states — petitioned the Commerce Department to investigate possible dumping of shrimp from China, Vietnam, Brazil, Ecuador, India and Thailand. Dumping is illegal in the United States, and is punished with tariffs to put law-abiding companies on equal footing.

In July, the Commerce Department issued preliminary anti-dumping tariff determinations for the six countries, which last year provided 90 percent of the shrimp consumed in the United States. Final determinations for China and Vietnam were announced yesterday, and decisions on the other four countries will be made Dec. 20.

The Commerce Department placed a countrywide tariff of 112.81 percent on Chinese shrimp imports and 25.76 percent on Vietnamese imports. A handful of large companies that account for the majority of each country's shrimp exports received lower individual tariffs after complying with the anti-dumping investigation. They averaged about 55 percent in China and about 4 percent in Vietnam.

While the U.S. shrimp industry and its lawyers accurately predicted the Chinese tariffs last summer, the Vietnamese tariffs were far below the roughly 90 percent rate they'd expected.
 
James Jochum, the assistant commerce secretary, attributed the change of heart on Vietnam in part to the willingness of Vietnamese shrimp producers to aid the Commerce Department's investigation. Commerce also changed its complex pricing-assessment methodology in Vietnam's favor.

China, the second-largest exporter of shrimp to the United States, behind Thailand, could see its share of the American market reduced. The 18 Chinese companies that are saddled with the countrywide rate now stand little chance of competing with other producers.