(The Center Square) – Commercial fishermen who experience unexpected losses from foreign competition would be eligible for federal assistance under a proposal to expand the current relief rules.
The Magnuson-Stevens Act currently provides aid to the seafood industry if is hurt by natural or manmade disasters such as hurricanes or oil spills. A bill from U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., would amend the law to include “economic cause” as an allowable trigger for a disaster declaration when that harm is tied to activities carried out by a foreign person or state.
Mace’s bill targets coastal states where fishermen say they have been undercut by cheap imports and alleged illegal practices abroad. Mace has framed the bill as a way to steer buyers toward domestic seafood and protect the commercial fishing way of life. The bill has eight other cosponsors and bipartisan support.
As previously reported, the U.S. Treasury has a history of adding to the industry’s burden by doling out hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to foreign competition.
Louisiana shrimpers say the market has been reshaped by foreign competition as well as U.S. policy and financing. For years, industry advocates have argued that taxpayer-backed development funding has helped expand shrimp farming overseas even as imports surged and domestic harvests fell.
The result, they say, has been chronic oversupply that keeps prices depressed, worsened by alleged mislabeling of imported shrimp as local. Communities like DuLac, once anchored by processing plants and seasonal harvests, have watched boats run aground, plants close and costs rise.
“When you start over-importing, you start shutting down America,” Kermit Duck, a Morgan City shrimper, told The Center Square. “We can’t compete with the market, so we’re stuck having to sell our shrimp here to make ends meet because we can’t afford to sell them at the dock.”
Duck wouldn’t be able to file a federal disaster request on his own. Under the Magnuson-Stevens Act, the process typically starts when a state or tribe formally requests a “fishery resource disaster” determination.
In 2023, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards asked the federal government to activate the Magnuson-Stevens Act to declare a disaster after an influx of foreign shrimp drove dockside prices to lower than $1 per pound. The request was never granted, and the state instead tried to squeeze relief from other federal sources.
“The impacts of a hurricane, fish stock collapse, or the economic impacts of unethical imports are the same – shrimpers can’t go fishing,” said Blake Price of the Southern Shrimp Alliance. “America is rapidly losing its ability to produce its most consumed seafood.”
The industry has worked its way onto the priority lists of federal and state lawmakers in recent years.
Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas have passed laws requiring restaurants and retailers to disclose whether seafood is imported or domestic and whether it’s wild-caught or farm-raised.
In December, Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., introduced legislation aimed at forcing Customs and Border Protection to distribute money Louisiana seafood producers say has been stuck in Washington for years: $38.5 million in interest tied to antidumping duties on Chinese imports, including $10.6 million earmarked for crawfish producers, according to Cassidy’s announcement.
