Would a catfish by any other name taste as sweet? Maybe, but a protectionist battle brewing in America over fish imports from Vietnam sure stinks like yesterday’s catch.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is weighing whether to classify the Vietnamese pangasius as "catfish" when applying the 2008 Farm Bill, a regulatory process mandated by the law. This isn’t just semantics. Under the farm bill, catfish are subject to more stringent inspections than pangasius. Since Vietnam would not be able to implement the inspections cheaply or quickly, it would effectively amount to an import ban. Domestic U.S. producers are lobbying the Department of Agriculture for a broad definition of "catfish."
This is protectionism at its worst. Vietnamese pangasius is a different species from the catfish raised in the Mississippi River and China. The U.S. inspection requirement ostensibly is meant to ensure the safety of fish from China. There are no serious concerns about the safety of Vietnamese fish imports.