March 2002 issue of Seafood Business:
March 2002 Trade Forum

By Greg Rushford

Who’s looking out for importers’ interests?

Each spring, representatives of the nation’s 10,000 car dealers, who import automobiles in more than 40 states, make the rounds on Capitol Hill, where they always make a strong pitch for free trade. They do this even though the American International Automobile Dealers Association hasn’t had a serious threat to cut off its access to imported Toyotas and Hondas since the 1995 auto fight with Japan. AIADA’s members maintain their political connections, knowing that protectionist threats are always lurking.

If only the nation’s seafood importers were so organized.

I’ve covered some celebrated seafood trade spats in recent years: crawfish tail meat from China, salmon from Chile, and crabmeat from Southeast Asia. Currently, catfish from Vietnam is under attack. Usually, the “protectionist” side is much better focused, while the “free trade” side plays catch-up.

You certainly can’t blame domestic seafood lobbies for fighting to protect their perceived interests. They are only exercising their constitutional rights to petition their government for redress from perceived wrongs. And from the Louisiana crawfish processors’ perspective, it was “unfair” that some $35 million of Chinese imports in 1996 were cutting into their market share. Filing an antidumping case the next year to slap on tariffs as high as 200 percent on what Pat Buchanan called “communist crawfish” made sense along the Bayou.

Meanwhile, national restaurant chains like Darden, which operates several restaurant concepts, including Red Lobster and Olive Garden, that had wanted to sell Chinese crawfish in U.S. national markets — which the Louisiana industry could not do — remained largely on the sidelines. A Darden representative explained privately that the gumbo market was relatively small, and that passions in Louisiana were high.

That changed in 1997-98, when U.S. salmon producers filed an antidumping petition against Chile, which had been selling Americans more than $100 million of salmon fillets annually. This was enough money to fight for. Darden and many others got busy.

The Salmon Trade Alliance, a powerful coalition of restaurants and the National Restaurant Association; supermarkets (Harris-Teeter, Safeway) and the Food Marketing Institute; and freight forwarders, distributors, and even airlines, waged a vigorous $6 million campaign that preserved the importing industry’s access to Chilean salmon.

“We punched every button we could,” recalls Jeanne McKnight, an industry consultant from Seattle who played a key role in the coalition.

After declaring victory, the salmon coalition disbanded.

Then U.S. crab processors challenged imports of Asian crabmeat. Chesapeake Bay area entrepreneur Steve Phillips of Phillips Foods had to begin the difficult coalition-building effort anew in 1999. The energetic Phillips even expanded on the salmon coalition, bringing more than 200 seafood companies into the ultimately successful effort.

But these days, it’s the same old story.

U.S. catfish farmers have declared war on Vietnam, and nobody seems to be defending the importing community’s interests.

Unlike those whose livelihoods depend upon imported seafood, the nation’s auto dealers understand that in the long run it is easier — and less expensive — to maintain your political connections, year in and year out.

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