This shrimp tariff grows fishier (sorry) by the minute.
Turns out, the tariff is the result of an anti-dumping case brought by domestic seafood producers. The Commerce Department ruled that Vietnam is too loose with its government shrimp subsidies and, therefore, is selling shrimp in the U.S. at artificially low costs. (Cheap shrimp? The horror!)
The notion the Bush administration admonishing another country for ag subsidies is in itself pretty laughable. Bush of course signed an ag bill not only reinstating farm subsidies that the Clinton administration had begun phasing out actually increasing them to levels never seen before.
But it gets worse. It turns out that the U.S. shrimp growers' anti-dumping case was financed by -- are you ready for this? -- state and federal subsidies to U.S. shrimp growers!
That's right. Big Shrimp used domestic subsidies to finance an anti-dumping case against competitors it argued were overly subsidized.
And there's more. Guess where the revenues from those tariffs will go? Directly into the pocket of the U.S. shrimp industry.
The whole scam means that you'll soon be paying about 40% more for shrimp. And that number will grow if Commerce extends the tariff to other developing countries with shrimp farms. The Bush administrations latest free trade sellout also threatens to undermine a U.S. trade agreement with Vietnam negotiated by the Clinton administration.
More protectionist silliness from Bush. Unfortunately, at least in their campaign rhetoric, Kerry/Edwards beat the protectionist drum quite a bit themselves.
Midnyte_Ragebringer wrote:That kind of currupt bullshit pisses me the fuck off. That goes for all the farmers subsidies too. Paying people not to grow food? Fucking assholes.
Well the farming subsidies have a purpose, it helps farmers keep a constant income. If we didnt have these subsidies it would substancially cut into the income of many farmers and maybe over time bankrupt them, because they can either grow things on the land year after year with no breaks and destroy the soil so nothing will grow on it, which in the end causes them to go under, or they can do like they need to and let the fields lie fallow as needed, but with no subsidies they lose a lot of money on this and cant pay the bills, then lose the farmland they had to leave fallow in order to keep from destroying.
yeah those huge multi billion dollar factory farming corporations that something like 90% of the subsidies go to really need to be subsidized for the lean years.
