August 28, 2018 — Acy Cooper bought his first shrimping vessel, an old wooden flatboat, when he was 15.
Cooper followed his father and grandfather before him into the rich gumbo Gulf of Mexico waters from the fishing community of Venice on the coast of southern Louisiana.
Today Cooper and his two sons and son-in-law operate two Laffite skiffs — one 35-footer and one 30-footer — docked in the same community for another generation.
But although many American business owners are bracing for potential negative impacts of a trade war triggered by President Donald Trump’s tariffs, Cooper and his fellow shrimpers are pleading for such protections as foreign producers dump shrimp in the U.S. and cratering prices in the process.
In fact, earlier this month, about 200 members of the Louisiana Shrimpers Association, of which Cooper is president, threatened to go on strike without some action either from the Gulf Coast processors who buy their shrimp or from the president in the forms of tariffs or quotas.
“We were getting $1 a pound in the 1980s; now we’re getting 55 cents,” Cooper said as he prepared to spend another night on his boat casting his skimmer nets during the white shrimp season that began in August. “(Striking) is a last resort, but we have to show the processors we’re not going to work for nothing. Our communities are dying.”
During the shrimpers’ meeting in Houma one yelled, according to a nola.com report, “How many heard (Trump) say ‘make America great again’? Make shrimping great again!”