The Southern Shrimp Alliance (SSA) has come out in opposition to U.S. President Joe Biden’s latest nomination of Halie Craig to sit on the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) because she has spoken out against President-elect Donald Trump’s trade policies in the past.
“The U.S. International Trade Commission has played a central role in the shrimp industry’s ability to combat unfair trade,” SSA Executive Director John Williams said in a statement. “Our nation’s recent election demonstrates that there is strong opposition to the free-trade ideologies that have destroyed communities throughout our country.”
The USITC is an independent, bipartisan federal agency that investigates whether imports harm domestic industries and then takes action to negate what it deems unfair trade practices. The USITC has made determinations favorable to the domestic shrimp sector in recent years – in November, the USITC voted to impose duties on frozen warmwater shrimp from Ecuador, India, Vietnam, and Indonesia in response to petitions filed by the America Shrimp Processors Association (ASPA).
The USITC is comprised of six commissioners – traditionally three Democrats and three Republicans – who serve nine-year terms. Currently there are four USITC commissioners, three of whom are Democrats.
On 21 November, Biden nominated Craig to be one of the Republican members of the commission, replacing former Commissioner Randolph Stayin, who resigned in October 2023. If Craig’s nomination is approved by the U.S. Senate, she would complete Stayin’s term, which runs through 16 June 2026.
Craig is currently the policy director for technology for the Republican staff of the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee. In past roles, she led former U.S. Senator Pat Toomey’s (R-Pennsylvania) trade policy portfolio and served as an associate fellow with Washington, D.C., U.S.A.-based policy nonprofit R Street Institute, where she provided commentary and research on trade issues.
“Congratulations to Halie Craig for being nominated as a Republican member of the International Trade Commission,” Toomey said in a social media post shortly after the nomination was announced. “Halie has the experience and integrity to make an outstanding member of the commission.”
In an 11 December statement, the SSA came out against Craig’s nomination, claiming that she has “unfairly and absurdly ridiculed President-elect Trump’s actions with respect to international trade.” The association highlighted multiple instances from 2020 and 2021 of Craig criticizing Trump’s use of tariffs during his first term.
“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,” Craig wrote in a 27 April 2021 Foreign Policy article highlighted by the SSA. “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 its statement, the SSA argued that it’s inappropriate to fill one of the Republican positions on the USITC with someone so opposed to President-elect Trump’s approach to trade and tariffs.
“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,” Williams said.
The U.S. Senate Committee on Finance has scheduled a hearing on Craig’s nomination for 18 December. The committee will also consider two other nominees to the USITC: Democrat James Coughlan, who would replace current Commissioner Rhonda Schmidtlein, and Republican William Kimmitt, who would fill one of the vacant positions.
Trade experts have predicted that Trump’s trade policies – which could include tariffs as high as 60 percent on goods from China and 20 percent on goods from other countries – would increase barriers for seafood importers, although they could benefit the domestic shrimping sector.
“I expect more antidumping and countervailing duty orders (shrimp is a good example) against countries regarding seafood,” Peter Quinter, a U.S. customs and international trade attorney at Florida-based law firm Gunster, told SeafoodSource previously. “Particular to China, I expect the Uyghur Forced Labor Protection Act [UFLPA] to continue to expand the number of Chinese seafood suppliers to be added to the UFLPA Entity List maintained by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.”
