The U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) has decided to maintain antidumping duties on shrimp from India, China, Thailand, and Vietnam in its latest five-year review, according to a 1 June notification.
All five USITC commissioners voted to support the continuation of the antidumping orders.
“The U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) today determined that revoking the existing antidumping duty orders on frozen warmwater shrimp from China, India, Thailand, and Vietnam would be likely to lead to continuation or recurrence of material injury within a reasonably foreseeable time,” the commission said. “As a result of the commission’s affirmative determinations, the existing orders on imports of this product from China, India, Thailand, and Vietnam will remain in place.”
The commission’s conclusion marks the closure of the third five-year review – or sunset review, as it is called by the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) – with such reviews being conducted since the U.S. began imposing antidumping duties in 2005. The fourth sunset review on antidumping duty orders is expected in June 2028.
The DOC announced the initiation of the third sunset review on 2 May, 2022, after which the Ad Hoc Shrimp Trade Action Committee (AHSTAC) and the American Shrimp Processors Association (ASPA) submitted documentation to make them eligible to participate in the review.
In 2005, AHSTAC filed formal petitions requesting antidumping duties be imposed on foreign shrimp suppliers in order to protect the U.S. domestic shrimp industry from what it claimed were unfair trade practices.
After an expedited review of the filings it received, the DOC determined “that revocation of the orders would likely lead to a continuation or recurrence of dumping and that the magnitude of the dumping margins likely to prevail would be weighted-average margins up to 112.81 percent for China, up to 110.90 percent for India, up to 5.34 percent for Thailand, and up to 25.76 percent for Vietnam,” according to a DOC notice published on the Federal Register in September 2022.
ASPA, which has spent 15 years defending the antidumping orders to protect the domestic shrimp industry, commended the USITC’s conclusion, saying the antidumping duties are critical for the survival of the U.S. shrimp industry.
“Decades of increasing imported shrimp volumes have created a race to the bottom on prices and decimated our market share. Today, the ITC provided us with a lifeline and incentive to continue the fight to allow this industry to survive in a fair competitive environment,” ASPA President Trey Pearson said in a statement.
The Southern Shrimp Alliance (SSA), which represents shrimp fishermen, shrimp processors, and other domestic stakeholders in eight warmwater-shrimp producing U.S. states, applauded the commission’s decision as well. The SSA had backed lawmakers in the U.S. state of Louisiana in asking the USITC to extend antidumping duties on imported warmwater shrimp, suggesting that a failure to do so would be devastating to domestic shrimp producers.
“This morning’s vote was a great result for the industry,” SSA Executive Director John Williams said. “Securing relief against dumped imports for another five years doesn’t happen without the unwavering support of our elected representatives, particularly [U.S.] Senator Bill Cassidy, [U.S.] Senator John Kennedy, and [U.S.] Congressman Garret Graves. And it doesn’t happen without hundreds of businesses across the Gulf and South Atlantic investing significant time and resources into defending our industry.”
During its full reviews, the commission has gathered information from U.S. shrimp fishermen, farmers, and processors to consider whether the U.S. domestic shrimp industry would be materially affected if the antidumping duties were abolished.
According to SSA, 19 different shrimp processors in the U.S., representing approximately 55 percent of the country's shrimp production in 2021 (measured by live-weight) or nearly 88 percent (measured by headless, shell-on equivalent weight), testified that trade-relief measures enabled them to operate profitably from 2019 to September 2022. Despite the overall industry profits, however, margins remained slim, with operating income ratios (as a percentage of net sales values) rising from 0.9 percent in 2019 to 2.9 percent in 2020 but falling to 1.6 percent in 2021. Notably, eight out of the 19 processors that provided the USITC with information reported losses in 2021.
During the third sunset review, 329 domestic shrimp fishing and farming operations, representing 21 percent of total U.S. shrimp production in 2021, including both wild-caught and farm-raised shrimp, submitted questionnaire responses to the commission. Most of these businesses said that they were able to maintain profitable operations in 2019, 2020, and 2021 thanks to the trade relief measures, with shrimp-farming firms’ and fishing companies’ operating income ratios, expressed as a percentage of net sales values, reaching 3.6 percent in 2019, 8.1 percent in 2020, and 6.6 percent in 2021. However, 80 of the 317 shrimp-harvesting businesses reported they experienced losses in 2021.
The sunset review differs the administrative review that the DOC has undertaken on an annual basis, under which it determines whether exporters from India, China, Thailand, and Vietnam sell their shrimp into the U.S. at less than fair value during a certain period.
In another move, the U.S. State Department in May 2023 suspended the certification of wild-caught shrimp fisheries in four Malaysian states of Kelantan, Terengganu, Pahang, and Johor. As a result, wild-caught shrimp from Malaysia was not allowed to be imported into the U.S. starting 1 June as U.S. law bars any importation of wild-caught shrimp without the U.S. Department’s relevant certification, according to an SSA statement released 25 May.
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