Seafood Fight!

You understand the mainstream debate over trade – on one side are the sophisticated, global "free traders," and on the other are those naïve "protectionists" trying to wreak havoc with their pesky environmental and labor regulations. But over the past two weeks, the slips of those who claim the mantle of free trade have been showing.

Given the chance to stand by their rhetoric or protect American industry – most recently from the Yellow Peril of Asian seafood exports – they did what they always do; they proved that, in reality, there are no free traders.

The first blow to the notion of "economic freedom" came Nov. 26, when the World Trade Organization authorized sanctions against us in retaliation for the WTO-illegal Byrd Amendment. That law allows American corporations to receive duties directly from overseas rivals they accuse of "dumping" and other trade hijinks. The foreign firms get a double-whammy; they pay the duties and at the same time they fatten their competitors' bottom line. And consumers get a double-screwing; our tax dollars are used to collect the private sector's alms and in return we get to pay higher prices.

Then, last Tuesday, there was another knock to the notion that 'a rising tide will raise all boats.' In what Forbes called "a blatant display of protectionism," the free-trading, market-worshipping Bush Administration approved of duties ranging from 4 to 113 percent on shrimp from China and Vietnam.

Vietnam may be a trade opponent now, but starting in the late 1980s, there was a big bipartisan push – led by Republican John McCain and Democrat John Kerry – to introduce a free market system to our former enemies in Hanoi. The hope was that we could accomplish with aid and technical assistance what we failed to do with guns and napalm 40 years ago.

Two areas USAID officials identified for development were shrimp and catfish farming in the lush, nutrient-rich Mekong Delta. With its inexpensive labor and good climate, Vietnam had excellent prospects for developing its seafood exports. USAID and international development banks started pumping seed money into fish farming projects.

Their optimism proved well founded. According to the New York Times, "within a few years, an estimated half-million Vietnamese were living off a catfish trade nurtured by private entrepreneurs. Vietnam captured 20 percent of the frozen catfish-fillet market in the United States." By 2002, shrimp was Vietnam's largest seafood export, and, according to Agence France Presse, the U.S. – at $467 million dollars – was its biggest buyer.

Rural poverty rates in Vietnam dropped from 70 percent to 30 percent during the 1990s, according to the Times. But prices also dropped and catfish producers in Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama and Arkansas, and shrimpers from eight coastal states began to feel the pinch. So in 2002 The Mississippi Delta Catfish Farmers – an industry lobby – reached out to Trent Lott (R-Miss.), then the Senate Majority Leader.

Lott amended an appropriations bill with a little rider that declared that out of 2,000 types of catfish, only the American family – Ictaluridae – could be labeled "catfish," according to the New York Times. So the Vietnamese could sell their fish in the States only under the Vietnamese words "basa" and "tra."

Needless to say, sales dropped dramatically – "a fried basa po-boy" just doesn't have the same down-home feel. But that wasn't enough; the same group then initiated an "anti-dumping" measure against Vietnam. With the help of Lott and Arkansas Democrat Marion Berry – who, with typical congressional tact, reminded worried consumers that we dumped quite a bit of Agent Orange in the Mekong Delta – the Commerce Department imposed tariffs of 64 percent on Vietnamese catfish.