U.S. Representative Clay Higgins (R-Louisiana) recently sent a letter to the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump that offered simple advice on Trump's tariff policies: To save American seafood, tax imports from China, Ecuador, India, Indonesia, and Vietnam.
Higgins shared the letter he sent to the president on social media platform X with the caption, “Protecting the American seafood industry requires aggressive action.”
In it, he argued that the U.S. government’s seafood trade policies were harming the American seafood sector. The U.S. International Trade Commission has made similar claims, arguing that manufactured confusion about shrimp origin creates unfair competition between lower-priced foreign shrimp and higher-priced domestic shrimp.
“Domestic shrimpers, fishermen, and crawfish producers in Louisiana and across the country face significant challenges competing against foreign seafood industries that are heavily subsidized and engage in illegal dumping into the United States. These unrighteous trade practices artificially drive down prices, disrupt fair market conditions, and threaten the livelihoods of hardworking American seafood producers,” Higgins said in his letter.
The countries targeted in the letter include the biggest importers of shrimp to American markets – India, Ecuador, and Indonesia – and others which have rapidly increased their shrimp production in recent years – China and Vietnam.
Higgins called for the “administration to use ...
