Business
The U.S.-Vietnamese Catfish Dispute
The U.S.-Vietnamese Catfish Dispute
- Advantages and Disadvantages for the U.S. to protect its Catfish Industry
There are some advantages for the U.S. to protect its catfish industry by imposing an extensive inspection on imported catfish from Vietnam. Primarily, the domestic catfish growers in the U.S. will have a bigger profit as the importation of catfish from Vietnam will be limited. It was also proposed that the imported fish must have different names than those fishes that are sold locally. This is to comply with the consumers’ right to know what he or she is buying. It will also eliminate the “dumping” of imported fish in the U.S. Also, extensive inspection on imported catfish from Vietnam will ensure that they are not contaminated as a response to the previous food contamination of dog and cat food from China. However, one of the disadvantages is the risks of U.S. export reduction to Vietnam. The restrictions on catfish importation might jeopardize the sales coming from the U.S. exports to Vietnam. Additionally, such restrictions may result to economic conflicts between U.S. and Vietnam, which both countries do not want to happen.
- U.S. Protective measures that has not used to protect the catfish industry.
Unfair Competition Dumping – This is to increase the tax on imported Vietnamese fish due to suspected “dumping” strategy being done by Vietnamese fish exporters. This was supposed to be used to impose higher tariffs on imported fish. However, it may not be successful as it is difficult to determine the exact production costs of imported fish. However, if the production cost for imported fish can be determined, specific tariffs can be imposed so as to prevent “dumping” of Vietnamese fish exporters.
Changing Names – This is also another measure to protect the U.S. catfish industry, but has not been used in the country. This is to prevent imported fish to be called catfish, but with their Vietnamese variety names. This is to identify, which fish has been produced locally and which one is imported from Vietnam.
