Today, the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) found that the U.S. shrimp industry was suffering material injury by reason of unfairly-traded imports. The agency’s decision was unanimous from the four current Commissioners on the ITC.
Because of the ITC’s decision, a new antidumping duty order on imports of shrimp from Indonesia and countervailing duty orders on imports of shrimp from Ecuador, India, and Vietnam will be formally imposed. The trade remedy will require importers of shrimp from Ecuador to continue to make cash deposits of roughly 3.8 percent on import entries, while importers of Indonesian shrimp will continue to be required to make antidumping duty cash deposits of around 3.9 percent on their entries from every exporter other than PT Bahari Makmur Sejati (BMS), which is exempt from cash deposit requirements. In addition to the antidumping duties already imposed on shrimp imports from India and Vietnam, importers of Indian shrimp will be required to make additional countervailing duty deposits of roughly 5.8 percent, while importers of Vietnamese shrimp will pay an additional 2.8 percent.
These cash deposit requirements will remain in place until U.S. importers have the opportunity to request refunds, likely meaning that they will not be revised until 2027.
The ITC’s affirmative determination is in response to petitions for trade relief filed by the American Shrimp Processors Association in October 2023.
The federal agency based its determination on evidence provided by twenty (20) U.S. processors of shrimp and 388 shrimp harvesters.
“The Southern Shrimp Alliance welcomes the U.S. International Trade Commission’s acknowledgement of the pain that our industry has experienced over the last couple of years due to a flood of unfairly-traded shrimp imports,” said John Williams, Executive Director of the Southern Shrimp Alliance. “We are grateful to the federal officials who devoted tremendous time and resources to investigate this industry’s claims, beginning with the Commerce officials responsible for considering shrimp fishermen’s requests that a trade case be self-initiated by the government. And we are even more grateful to the members of the industry who took the time to provide sensitive information about their business operations to the Commission to prove that this industry deserves trade relief.”
Read the U.S. International Trade Commission’s November 19, 2024 press release regarding the affirmative material injury determination here: https://www.usitc.gov/press_room/news_release/2024/er1119_66150.htm