Higgins Leads Effort to Initiate Investigation into Foreign Seafood Importers Engaging in Harmful Trade Practices

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congressmen Clay Higgins (R-LA) and Troy Carter (D-LA) penned a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Ambassador Jamieson Greer urging a Section 301 investigation into unfair practices affecting trade in seafood products. Read the full letter here. 

Foreign seafood importers engaging in unfair trade practices, such as labor abuses and false labeling, have contributed to a significant decline in the domestic seafood industry. A Section 301 investigation offers an important tool for correcting trade imbalances and ensuring fair competition across the seafood sector. 

The Members wrote, “Consistent with the Executive Order and your stated intent, we respectfully request that the Office of the United States Trade Representative (“USTR”) initiate a broad Section 301 investigation into unfair acts, policies, and practices affecting trade in seafood and seafood products… a Section 301 investigation encompassing a broad spectrum of unfair practices, including false labeling and species designations, the abuse of banned antibiotics and fungicides in aquaculture, export and production subsidies, environmental harm, structural excess capacity, labor abuses, and permissive standards with respect to gear usage, would allow the Administration to effectively leverage access to our market to improve conditions overseas and level the playing field for the American seafood industry within its own domestic market.” 

“Because of the breadth and complexity of these challenges, we encourage the USTR to pursue a seafood-specific Section 301 investigation that examines all unfair acts, policies, and practices across the full seafood supply chain from countries including, but not limited to: Argentina, Canada, Chile, China, Ecuador, Egypt, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Peru, Spain, Thailand, and Vietnam, ” The Members continued.

The letter is supported by several seafood industry associations, including the Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation, the Southern Shrimp Alliance, and the Catfish Farmers of America. 

Richard Fontenot, President of Louisiana Farm Bureau, said, “Time and again I hear from Louisiana Farm Bureau members who have a simple request of their lawmakers: help us do business on a level playing field. Congressmen Carter and Congressman Higgins clearly have heard that plea and are raising their voices for us in a big way. We appreciate them calling on USTR to initiate a Section 301 investigation on seafood and we join them in this request to give our crawfish farmers, shrimpers, and other seafood producers a fighting chance.”

Blake Price, Director of the Southern Shrimp Alliance, said, “The U.S. shrimp industry is grateful to Congressmen Clay Higgins and Troy Carter for spearheading a Congressional request to the United States Trade Representative to launch a Section 301 investigation — one that can comprehensively address the unfair acts, policies, and practices harming American seafood producers. "We ask the Trump Administration to seize this opportunity to address unfair trade practices, eliminate unsafe imports, and level the longstanding unfair playing field for American producers. Under fair market conditions, American shrimpers can sustainably harvest tens of millions of additional pounds of shrimp each year — preserving a way of life for fishing families and boosting coastal economies from Texas to North Carolina."