Restaurants, stores and even shrimp festivals are importing cheaper foreign shrimp but telling customers they are eating shrimp caught by U.S. fishermen in the Gulf of America.
The deception is a major stab in the back for American shrimpers, whose industry has withered because of rising fuel costs and a flood of cheap imports from Vietnam, India, Ecuador and China.
American shrimpers say President Trump’s get-tough tariff policies would combat the damage from cheap imports and could help deter fraudulent mislabeling by making it less profitable.
SeaD Consulting, a seafood technology company, tested shrimp from randomly chosen restaurants across the Gulf Coast states of Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi and Florida. It discovered that nearly half (43%) were passing off shrimp grown in ponds overseas and imported to the U.S. as locally sourced.
In the Tampa metro area, 96% of restaurants studied were caught lying about serving locally sourced shrimp, while 82% of eateries in Biloxi, Mississippi, were doing the same, according to SeaD Consulting.
Some establishments sell T-shirts and other merchandise for customers to brag that they ate freshly caught Gulf shrimp.
Two major shrimp festivals were accused last year of using vendors that served imported shrimp. Only 1 in 5 allegedly served Gulf Coast shrimp. The National Shrimp Festival in Gulf Shores denied the allegation, saying it had provisions in contracts requiring vendors to sell domestically caught shrimp. It invited SeaD Consulting to test its shrimp next year.
“When consumers are assuming they are eating a Gulf product and they are not, they are being defrauded by restaurants, and that is a serious situation,” said David Williams, a commercial fishery scientist and SeaD Consulting founder. “There are a significant number of people who come to the Gulf Coast and get served the same shrimp they could get in Chicago. It’s very deceptive.”
The dishonest practice puts customers at a higher risk of consuming tainted food. The Food and Drug Administration reported that the U.S. refused 81 shrimp shipments last year from foreign nations because of banned antibiotics, the highest total on record.
China accounted for 32 of the 81 rejected shipments.
The U.S. tests less than 1% of the shrimp imported into the country for antibiotics or other contaminants.
The cheap imports also pose an existential threat to the U.S. shrimping industry.
In the 1980s, domestic-caught shrimp accounted for more than half of U.S. consumption. Today, more than 90% of all shrimp eaten in the U.S. is imported because foreign shrimpers face hardly any tariffs, undercutting their domestic counterparts.
The total value of U.S. shrimpers’ catch shrank from $522 million in 2021 to $268 million in 2023, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The impact has been devastating at the local level.
In 2000, Texas had more than 2,500 licensed commercial shrimpers along its Gulf Coast. It now has fewer than 1,000. In 1995, Alabama had 1,424 licensed commercial shrimp holders. That number was down to 407 last year.
Mr. Trump’s tariffs present one potential solution. The shrimp industry is one American sector that has welcomed the tariffs.
John Williams, executive director of the Southern Shrimp Alliance, said the tariffs will increase the cost of importing foreign shrimp. Until Mr. Trump levied tariffs this month, shrimp had not faced import duties.
“The U.S. shrimp industry expects tariffs will help offset unfair trade, allowing U.S. shrimp to be more competitively priced against imports. That is great news for consumers who may find premium U.S. wild-caught shrimp more available in grocery stores,” he said.
Mr. Trump had imposed steep tariffs on some of the largest shrimp importers but paused them for three months, leaving only a baseline levy of 10%. He raised tariffs on China, among the top shrimp exporters, to 145%.
If Mr. Trump restarts tariffs after the 90-day pause, the top four shrimp exporters into the U.S. — India (26%), Ecuador (12%), Vietnam (46%) and Thailand (36%) — will face high levies.
Those countries are subject to the 10% tariff Mr. Trump has imposed on most U.S. trading partners.
China is the eighth-largest shrimp exporter in the U.S., though it has declined significantly since 2023, according to data from NOAA.
Mr. Williams of SeaD called the tariffs a good “short-term solution” to the issue of fraudulent shrimp.
“Obviously, if the shrimp got more expensive, it would mean that the domestic shrimp, locally produced shrimp, should be able to command a more reasonable price,” he said, adding that imported shrimp will be a “less attractive” option for restaurants and stores.
Mr. Williams cautioned that tariffs don’t necessarily address the problem of false labeling.
Last year, the Federal Trade Commission adopted a more stringent rule to enforce laws against seafood mislabeling. Still, critics said the FTC hasn’t enforced much beyond sending letters in October to remind restaurants of truth-in-advertising laws.
The agency did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
In recent months, the shrimping industry has pressured state legislatures to crack down on fraudulent seafood labeling, including shrimp. Alabama enacted a law last year requiring restaurants that sell imported shrimp to include a notice on their menus telling customers that the shrimp is imported and list its country of origin. Louisiana enacted a similar law in January.
Louisiana was already cracking down on fraudulent seafood. That’s why the state’s inauthenticity rate is 33% compared with the average of 78% for other markets surveyed.
“The enforcement piece of this is what the federal government could be doing,” Mr. Williams said. “Having more of a force out there to enforce those laws is one way forward.”
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.
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