The U.S. Court of International Trade has upheld countervailing duties on Vietnamese shrimp producer and exporter Soc Trang Seafood Joint Stock Company (Stapimex).
The U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) announced in March 2024 that it was considering countervailing duties for Stapimex and most Vietnamese shrimp export companies. Countervailing duties are implemented by the DOC when investigations determine that foreign governments are subsidizing the production of the product, leading to an advantage compared to unsubsidized U.S. companies.
The DOC ultimately followed through on the countervailing duties, with Stapimex and most Vietnamese companies being hit by a 2.84 percent countervailing duty, aside from one company Thong Thuan Company, which was hit with a 221.82 percent duty.
The duties were the result of an investigation launched in 2023 after the American Shrimp Processors Association (ASPA) filed trade petitions, claiming the U.S. market had been overwhelmed by “massive quantities of underpriced shrimp imports” that it said had pushed dockside prices for U.S. shrimp harvesters to unsustainably low levels. Shrimp landings and prices were at decades-long lows in 2023 and only worsened in 2024.
The ASPA celebrated the DOC decision, calling it a hard-fought battle.
“I am deeply grateful to all of the small, family-owned American businesses that joined together in this fight. Today’s result shows what can be achieved when we work together, and it gives me great hope for our industry’s future,” ASPA President Trey Pearson said in 2024, soon after the countervailing duty finding.
Following that finding, Stapimex requested the U.S. Court of International Trade review DOC’s decision, challenging the department’s use of certain land rental data in its determination that the company was being subsidized. The company argued that the use of the Thailand Board of Investment’s Cost of Doing Business in Thailand 2023 Report as a benchmark for industrial and land rental prices was not accurate enough.
U.S. Judge Leo M. Gordon’s decision rejected the argument, saying “it appears that Plaintiff is really asking the court to second-guess Commerce’s selection of data from a record containing multiple flawed but reasonable options and to reweigh the evidence on the record in evaluating the reasonableness of Commerce’s ultimate selection,” Gordon wrote. “This the court will not do.”
Gordon wrote the DOC’s benchmark selections met the evidence standard, as it “selected the best available information from the limited datasets on the record.”
The new countervailing duties were defended by lawyers with the ASPA.
Stapimex is one of a few companies in Vietnam that, in addition to countervailing duties, have also been hit with an antidumping duty by the DOC. In a preliminary determination published by the DOC in June 2025, Stapimex was found to be the “only respondent for which Commerce calculated an individual estimated weighted-average dumping margin that is not zero, de minimis, or based entirely on facts otherwise available.”
That finding led the DOC to propose a 35.29 percent dumping margin on its shrimp products, which was published in the Federal Register in June 2025 – higher than the 25.76 percent duty placed on all Vietnamese companies in early 2005. However, that number is still under an administrative review, and will not apply until the final results of the review are published in the Federal Register.
The countervailing and antidumping duties are added on top of the existing U.S. tariffs on Vietnamese goods, which have fluctuated since U.S. President Donald Trump first announced additional tariffs in April. At that time, Trump announced a steep 42 percent tariff rate on Vietnam but later reduced that to 20 percent in October after reaching an agreement on trade, meaning shrimp from Stapimex faces 58.13 percent in duties when shipped to the U.S. if all duties are upheld.
The U.S.’s increasing use of antidumping, countervailing, and “reciprocal” tariffs have lead Vietnamese companies to begin pursuing market and product diversification. The U.S. is one of the top export markets for Vietnamese shrimp and, in 2024, was the fifth-largest source of seafood for the U.S. and exported USD 1.71 million (EUR 1.47 billion) worth of seafood to the country.
