Posted on 12/01/2003 12:16:43 PM PST by Willie Green
For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.
As for many other people in South Mississippi, shrimp means a lot to Brian Gollott and his family.
His grandfather started C.F. Gollott & Son Seafood Inc., in Biloxi in 1932 and passed it down through the generations. Now, Gollott and his four brothers are in the business, as is the rest of his family. Shrimp is their livelihood.
But Gollott worries that the trend of increased foreign trade and shrimp imports could steamroll his business into the ground.
"I'm concerned that my family business cannot compete with foreign countries," he said. "I've been told that people who work in shrimp plants in (other countries) make considerably less money, and it's forcing us to pay our fishermen less so we can compete."
Gollott's story is a familiar one to thousands of people around the state and hundreds in South Mississippi. While trade policies like the North American Free Trade Agreement have slashed tariffs and opened the doors to markets in other countries, they have had a twofold effect in the United States: Consumers are benefiting because goods are cheaper, but some manufacturers are hurting as their business slips across the oceans.
More than 80 percent of the shrimp processed in Mississippi comes from overseas. The competition has driven prices for local shrimpers to a 50-year low.
Although no exact numbers are available for the number of jobs South Mississippi has lost to NAFTA, economists agree the impact depends on whom you ask, consumers or people who have lost jobs.
It's the domino effect that worries Gollott. As wages dip to keep up with the competition, he said, fringe sectors like the companies that supply the fishing nets, ice, and fuel, the shrimp boat mechanics and hardware stores also lose business.
"I'm not an economist, but I do know what is detrimental to my business," Gollot said.
But Jay Moon, president of the Missisippi Manufacturers Association, said the Coast is one of the most well-positioned places in the state to benefit from increased trade because its ports can handle international ships.
"From a coastal perspective with the ports of Pascagoula and Gulfport, the Coast has been preparing for many years to be an alternate gateway for products moving in and out of the United States," Moon said. "That creates a special opportunity to take advantage of the world economy."
Moon also pointed that many jobs lost in the manufacturing sector to NAFTA in South Mississippi have been picked up by the boom in the entertainment industry, mainly the Coast's casinos.
But not everyone in South Mississippi agrees with that view, however. U.S. Rep. Gene Taylor of Bay St. Louis is one of the area's most ardent opponents of trade agreements.
"Unlike the policy hawks who never leave Washington, I can take you to the places where NAFTA has hurt the common folk," Taylor said. "I know the owners of factories, the foreman and the workers, and they'll all tell you it's because of NAFTA that their factories closed."
Taylor says the combination of job loss and lessened control over foreign trade relations has hurt the economy.
Sun, Nov. 30, 2003
Louisiana: Foreign shippers evade tariffs
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BATON ROUGE - Foreign shippers are using "tricks" to avoid paying protective tariffs on crawfish and catfish, state agriculture officials said.
The federal tariff on imported crawfish appears to work better now than anytime since it was enacted in 1997, but Chinese tail meat prices are still far lower than Louisiana crawfish prices, the officials said.
A new tariff on basa, a Vietnamese fish often billed as catfish, has foreign shippers copying foreign crawfish shippers' strategies for avoiding the tax, said Roy Johnson, Louisiana Agriculture Department director of marketing development.
"They've already started their tricks, their ways of trying to circumvent the tariff," Johnson said.
The agriculture department obtained a letter from a Vietnamese basa shipper to a U.S. marketer outlining ways to beat the tax, Johnson said. The letter instructs the marketer to avoid the tax by labeling the fish as grouper or "mud fish."
Shippers' evasion of the tax means lower prices for consumers, but U.S. seafood producers say the fish and crawfish are of lower quality than domestic products.
The U.S. International Trade Commission approved a five-year renewal for imported crawfish this year - an import tax of 200 percent or more. Fish imported from Vietnam marketed as catfish was hit with a tariff of up to 60 percent.
Tariffs drive up the cost of getting goods across the border, forcing marketers of cheaper imported products to raise their prices to a point where U.S. producers can compete.
The crawfish tariff did little to stop Chinese crawfish from dominating the frozen tail meat market until the U.S. government changed some rules in 2002 and increasing enforcement.
Since then, producers say Chinese tail meat prices have increased, but not to the $5 or $6 per pound they say is necessary for U.S. crawfish to compete.
Johnson predicted that foreign tail meat prices will continue to rise.
The Louisiana Legislature passed a law last year saying that only native U.S. catfish can be labeled "catfish" and that all catfish packages must be labeled with the country of origin.
So dealing blackjack is as good for the economic health of the nation as building products?
Some economist.
Yeah, I guess you're right.
We're not exactly talking hepatitis contaminated strawberries or green onions here, either.
Who ever heard of anybody ever getting deathly ill from eating tainted fish or seafood?
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