The United States Customs and Border Protection Agency will be paying a record USD 19 million (EUR 15 million) to the crawfish industry in Louisiana after a court settlement against Chinese crawfish dumpers.
The money, according to U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., comes from unpaid duties the agency collected as part of the settlement, which found Chinese processors were dumping, or selling subsidized or unfairly discounted crawfish, in the United States, creating an unfair disadvantage to domestic crawfish producers.
Landrieu said this is the single largest payout the crawfish industry has ever received, and there could be more money in the works. The industry is asking for as much as USD 6 million (EUR 4.7 million) more in additional duties the agency collected to pay itself interest.
“These payments are reviving an industry nearly brought to its knees by illegal dumping,” Sen. Landrieu said. “Our crawfish farmers and fishermen can compete with anyone in the world when they are on a level playing field. But when other countries and companies unfairly and illegally ‘dump’ their goods on the U.S. market, it does tremendous damage to the domestic crawfish industry, costing American jobs.”
Louisiana is home to more than 1,800 crawfish farmers and fishermen who harvest over 110 million pounds of crawfish each year contributing nearly USD 120 million (EUR 94.6 million) in economic impact for Louisiana's economy.
