BATON ROUGE In just two months, President Barack Obamas administration will decide if the anti-dumping orders placed on the shrimp industries of five foreign nations should remain in place to protect fishermen and processors.
In 2005, the U.S. International Trade Commission placed anti-dumping orders on shrimp from Brazil, India, Vietnam and China and Thailand because it found the countries were importing a product at a price below the cost of production.
Now theres a sunset review scheduled for February of next year where federal officials will hear arguments on how successful the tariffs have been in helping coastal outfits, like those in Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes, compete with foreign imports.
According to the Louisiana Shrimp Task Force, the five foreign companies accounted for 75 percent of all imported shrimp before the special tariffs went on the books and shrank by more than 18 percent two years later.
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