This week the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) will formally issue a determination that the U.S. shrimp industry has been materially injured by reason of unfairly-traded imported shrimp from Ecuador, India, Indonesia, and Vietnam. All four Commissioners of the ITC unanimously voted in favor of an affirmative determination.
The most recent antidumping and countervailing duty investigations marked the eighth time that the ITC and its predecessor, the U.S. Tariff Commission, have investigated the state of the American shrimp industry since 1961. During that time, the ITC has also conducted investigations regarding important issues confronting U.S. commercial shrimpers, including the prevalence of imported seafood harvested through illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing in our market.
Over the last sixty-five years, the political appointees of Commissioners to the ITC have played a significant role in the operations of the U.S. commercial shrimp fishery. Relief from fair trade has not been granted lightly to the domestic shrimp industry and, despite the eight investigations, trade remedies on shrimp imports have only been imposed on two occasions.
At present, the ITC has two open vacancies for Commissioners and the terms for three of the four current Commissioners have expired, with the remaining Commissioner’s term set to expire next week. Nominations for the vacancies are needed to ensure that the ITC can continue to fulfil its mission. This is particularly true for trade-affected U.S. industries seeking relief from unfairly-traded imports.
However, on November 21, 2024, President Biden nominated Halie Craig, an outspoken critic of President-elect Trump’s trade policy, to serve as one of the Commissioners on the ITC from the Republican Party. Because Ms. Craig’s public views have unfairly and absurdly ridiculed President-elect Trump’s actions with respect to international trade, the Southern Shrimp Alliance strongly opposes this nomination.
For example, Ms. Craig co-authored an article in the National Review (Will Congress Rein in Tariff Abuse, July 2, 2020) deriding President Trump’s steel tariffs and arguing that Congress needed to reverse President Trump’s action:
Last week, the Supreme Court declined to hear arguments in a case filed by American steel importers challenging the constitutionality of the Trump administration’s 25 percent tariffs on foreign steel. While the decision is no doubt disappointing for the estimated 6.5 million Americans employed in steel-consuming industries, it should also serve as a wake-up call for a Congress that has so far been unable to rein in tariff abuse. . . .
Supervision from Congress indeed. Unless Congress wants to see new pressures on the economy from destructive tariff policies and even more job uncertainty for Americans in the middle of a pandemic, it needs to reassert its authority over trade.
Later in 2020, Ms. Craig wrote an op-ed for The Hill (New Canadian Aluminum Tariffs Threaten to Harm Trade Benefits, August 26, 2020) attacking the imposition of additional tariffs on imports of Canadian aluminum, again demanding that Congress limit President Trump’s authority:
With the chaos of this administration, the certainty of the trade deal, while flawed in substance, should have been one bright spot for American firms and workers.
The latest provocation of tariffs demonstrates that this is not the case. The deal has not ensured smoother trade relations with partners, and an unwillingness of our lawmakers to intervene continues to empower such dire economic entropy.
The reckless tariff actions of the White House once more raises concerns. Will Congress rein in tariff abuse?
In commentary published by the R Street Institute (Trump’s New Deal for American Agriculture, November 2, 2020), Ms. Craig mocked President Trump’s Section 301 duties on Chinese imports and asserted that the President would be better served by focusing on opening new markets:
What’s frustrating is that, unlike the economic toll exacted on U.S. agriculture by the coronavirus pandemic and recent severe weather, these trade wounds are entirely self-inflicted. Instead of simply removing its tariffs—which would benefit agricultural exporters as well as American consumers of tariffed goods—the White House has opted for a “solution” more befitting of a command economy: A whopping $28 billion in taxpayer-funded bailout payments to select agricultural producers. . . .
The president’s tariff strategy has already selected winners and losers in the U.S. economy; now, his bailout program is doing the same for the American agriculture industry. Instead of unilaterally borrowing billions in taxpayer money to further subsidize an already heavily subsidized industry, the administration would be wise to redouble its efforts on longer-term solutions that might actually work: The removal of tariffs and negotiation of trade deals that open new markets, not just prescribe unrealistic purchase requirements.
In 2021, Ms. Craig co-authored an article in Foreign Policy (To Save American Prosperity, Renew Fast Track, April 27, 2021) declaring President Trump’s trade policy to have been a failure that harmed the American people:
In a dramatic departure from free market conservative orthodoxy, Trump’s administration inflicted numerous trade wounds on Americans, including by raising tariffs on Chinese goods to an average of 19.3 percent, slapping so-called “national security” tariffs on steel and aluminum from virtually every U.S. trading partner, withdrawing the United States as a signatory to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with provisions that restrict trade, hamstringing the primary enforcement body of the World Trade Organization (WTO), and enacting a host of other antitrade policies. The result? Increased costs for U.S. consumers, lost jobs, multibillion dollar “trade aid” bailouts, and measurable U.S. disengagement from the global economy.
In that article, Ms. Craig argued for renewing “Fast Track Authority” to provide additional discretionary authority to President Biden after she had previously contended that President Trump’s U.S. – Mexico – Canada Agreement (USMCA) should be denied Fast Track treatment (Congress Should Slow Down ‘Fast Track’ For USMCA, January 14, 2020).
Ms. Craig has additionally publicly attacked supporters of President Trump’s trade policy in the U.S. Senate. In particular, through a piece co-written for the Cato Institute (Josh Hawley’s New Smoot-Hawley, May 19, 2020), Ms. Craig criticized a legislative proposal forwarded by Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) through which “the president would be free to raise tariffs to rates not seen since the disastrous Smoot-Hawley tariffs in the 1930s, hurting taxpayers and damaging American competitiveness in the global economy.”
“The U.S. International Trade Commission has played a central role in the shrimp industry’s ability to combat unfair trade,” said John Williams, Executive Director of the Southern Shrimp Alliance. “Our nation’s recent election demonstrates that there is strong opposition to the free-trade ideologies that have destroyed communities throughout our country. With President-elect Trump set to take office in a matter of weeks, there is simply no justification for installing someone to serve in a federal agency responsible for administering U.S. trade laws who has repeatedly claimed that President Trump’s trade policies harm Americans.”