Saving Seafood

Federal government’s new America-First Seafood Strategy offers hope for Gulf shrimpers

October 28, 2026 — The Southern Shrimp Alliance welcomes the Trump Administration’s announcement of the America First Seafood Strategy.

The Friday announcement was accompanied by a 33-page report and website, seafood.gov, focused on the revitalization of the U.S. seafood industry that clearly identified the challenge confronting the federal government: “Rich Waters. Rising Imports.”

The United States has some of the richest fishery resources in the world and the hardest working commercial fishermen on Earth. Yet America imports an overwhelming majority of its seafood supply while domestic seafood businesses and fishing communities struggle to survive. President Trump is fixing this, and putting America’s fisheries and American consumers first.

“President Trump has prioritized getting fishermen back to work to supply Americans with healthy, sustainable, domestically-sourced seafood. The U.S. shrimp industry is thrilled to see a detailed America First Seafood Strategy and looks forward to assisting federal agencies in the implementation of its objectives,” said Blake Price, Executive Director of the Southern Shrimp Alliance. “At the same time, American shrimpers ask that the Administration take meaningful action to combat the unfair trade practices that have allowed foreign seafood to dominate our market and provide immediate relief from high diesel costs that have forced our boats to tie up.”

Read the full article at The Houma Times

U.S. Shrimpers Petition to Stop Imports of Indian Shrimp Using Forced Labor

October 28, 2026 — The following was released by the Southern Shrimp Alliance:

U.S. commercial shrimp fishermen, supported by the Southern Shrimp Alliance, filed a trade action today to end imports of Indian shrimp produced through the reprehensible use of forced labor. The Section 337 complaint asks the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) to determine whether forced labor in the supply chains of major seafood producer Nekkanti Sea Foods constitutes an unfair trade practice that harms domestic shrimp producers.

“Forced labor is not a competitive advantage; it’s an inhumane practice that must end,” said Blake Price, executive director for the Southern Shrimp Alliance. “Multiple investigations find that Indian shrimp producers cut their costs by exploiting vulnerable populations, who are compelled by debt bondage, restricted movement, and abusive bosses to work in hazardous conditions to make shrimp that is exported to the United States. When the U.S. opens its market to Indian shrimp, we fail those vulnerable workers and allow immoral practices to push ethical producers out of the market.”

Growing Forced Labor Findings Unaddressed

In 2024, Corporate Accountability Lab, which is serving as co-counsel in the case, released a three-year studydocumenting widespread use of forced labor across all levels of India’s shrimp supply chain. The Associated Press, the Outlaw Ocean Project, and CNN have since corroborated the study, and the U.S. Department of Laboradded shrimp from India to the 2024 List of Goods Produced with Forced Labor (TVPRA List), officially notifying all U.S. buyers sourcing shrimp from India to exercise additional due diligence to combat forced labor.

The Tariff Act of 1930 grants the ITC authority under Section 337 to block the importation of goods involved in unfair acts or methods of competition that either injure or threaten to injure a U.S. industry.

Distorted Prices of Indian Shrimp Harm American Shrimpers

India is a leading supplier of shrimp to the U.S. market, accounting for over half of all peeled shrimp (52%) and 40% of all frozen warmwater shrimp imported into the United States in 2025. The ITC has repeatedly determined that the U.S. shrimp industry is harmed or threatened with injury by Indian shrimp companies due to dumping (selling below fair value) and subsidies from the Indian government that support shrimp production for export. However, these trade remedies do not fully address the unfair competition caused by forced labor, which undercuts U.S. shrimp producers and costs them sales in the U.S. market.

As Indian shrimp prices fell to record lows, they dragged down all shrimp prices, causing the U.S. shrimp industry to lose half of its value between 2021 and 2023. America’s multigenerational mom-and-pop shrimping businesses closed in staggering numbers. By 2024, state shrimping licenses reached their lowest levels on record, and the total number of commercial shrimp licenses for the Gulf of America dropped to less than one-third of what they were in 2000.

Additionally, studies have linked the pricing pressures resulting from the use of forced labor in India to increased worker exploitation in other major shrimp-producing countries, such as Indonesia and Vietnam. Meanwhile, America is quickly losing its ability to harvest sustainable shrimp from local waters because of uncompetitive practices, jeopardizing domestic food security.

“This case aims to pressure India’s shrimp aquaculture industry to remove forced labor from their supply chains to access the large U.S. market,” explained Price. “Unfairly traded shrimp undercut American shrimpers, who are leaving their cherished, multigenerational way of life to make ends meet. America is losing its ability to access the sustainable shrimp stocks that grow naturally in local waters.”

ITC Decision Coming Soon

The complaint offers a clear timeline and transparent plan for the U.S. shrimp industry, which for years has shown evidence of unfair practices and their damaging effects on American fishing families to the Department of Labor, the Food and Drug Administration, and other agencies without any resulting action.

The Section 337 complaint follows a strict legal process. The ITC Commissioners will decide within 30 calendar days (November 27, 2026) whether to initiate the case and announce how it will proceed. An eight-day public comment period will follow publication in the Federal Register.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Read the fact sheet: https://shrimpalliance.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/Section-337-Fact-Sheet-Final.pdf

Read the Corporate Accountability Lab’s (co-counsel) press release, blog, and landing page

Filed complaint: https://shrimpalliance.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/Sec-337-Complaint-PUBLIC.pdf

Investigation 337-3935

Class-action lawsuit accuses Walmart of inflating weight of frozen shrimp bags

October 27, 2026 — A class-action lawsuit filed by a shopper in the U.S. state of Illinois claims that bags of frozen shrimp sold by retail giant Walmart contain fewer shrimp than advertised.

The suit alleges that Walmart is counting the weight of the ice glaze utilized to prevent freezer burn on shrimp in its weight for the product, so when the bag is thawed out and drained, the product contains fewer shrimp than claimed. According to the lawsuit, the bags contain roughly 11 percent fewer shrimp than advertised.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Decade of Data Shows Rapid Decline in Pelagic Fish and Invertebrates in Deep Gulf

October 21, 2026 — Following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, scientists across the region jumped into action to monitor its impacts. One particular effort focused on pelagic nekton—the small critters like fish, shrimp, and cephalopods that swim freely in the ocean and serve as the base of pelagic food webs. The Deep-Pelagic Nekton Dynamics of the Gulf (DEEPEND) Consortium led this project to quantify long-term trends in the offshore fauna of the Gulf. While observed declines in these critical prey groups can’t be tied directly to the spill, scientists have not identified another likely explanation.

Tracking the Shift: A Decade of Deepwater Science

The first pelagic nekton sampling effort took place as soon as possible following the spill, with sampling occurring almost continuously for 9 months in 2011. These data represent the benchmark of pelagic nekton to which past and future numbers can be compared. The numbers were also similar to data collected during the 1980s and 1990s.

The next sampling involved six efforts across four consecutive years (2015–2018), followed by three more in 2021–2023. Overall, these efforts comprise more than a decade of abundance and composition data for pelagic nekton in the Gulf of America.

During each of these events, the project team sampled discrete depths from 0 to 1,500 meters in the Gulf using a 10-square-meter Multiple Opening/Closing Net and Environmental Sensing System, or MOCNESS, with 3 millimeter mesh. Once net tows were complete, the science teams identified and counted each of the animals collected in each sample.

In addition to traditional net-sampling methods, the team also used echosounders to measure acoustic backscatter in the water column during the day and at night. This allowed them to independently estimate relative abundance of animals in fine spatial detail. Scientists also collected tissue samples from three dominant lanternfish species to monitor changes in genetic diversity.

Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries

LOUISIANA: Price of diesel affecting shrimping industry

October 8, 2026 — For years, the shrimping industry has battled wave after wave of challenges, from surges of imported shrimp to plummeting prices and wild weather. Now, a new threat looms: skyrocketing diesel fuel costs.

Diesel fuel has hit a record price of close to $6 a gallon in South Louisiana, and the national average is $6.52, according to AAA. That is up an average of $3.69 a gallon at this time last year.

With fuel prices so high, many shrimpers remain at the dock.

Albert and Cheryl Granger are a husband-and-wife team who own a 55-foot-long shrimp boat that their son, Albert Jr., operates. They sell their shrimp from their home in the north Vermilion area. Their business is called “Granger Seafood.”

It is a method they have been doing since the early 1980s, long before it was popular.
But in recent months, they have watched their hard-earned profits slip away, eaten up by the relentless climb of fuel prices.

Read the full article at VermilionToday.com

US senator moves to raise tariffs on Ecuadorian shrimp

October 5, 2026 — U.S. Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Mississippi) has introduced a bill to raise tariffs on shrimp from Ecuador in a bid to discourage imports and support the domestic shrimp sector.

“Not much has changed since the federal government found that subsidized Ecuadorian shrimp contributed to material injury to the U.S. shrimp industry, except that Ecuador has only increased its shipments into the American market. As a result, Mississippi shrimpers and their counterparts across the Gulf face greater downward pressure on the prices they can get for their products,” Hyde-Smith said in a release. “The Ecuador Shrimp Tariff Act would work to level the playing field so that American shrimpers and processors can continue to compete and grow.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

LOUISIANA: The Louisiana fishermen refusing to go down with the ship

September 30, 2026 — In Cameron, Louisiana, all the RV parks are full.

Venture Global, a Virginia-based liquefied natural gas developer valued at around $36 billion, broke ground on a new multi-phase LNG plant in Cameron in August of 2019. Today, the first part of the plant—Calcasieu Pass 1, or CP1—is fully operational, cooling methane to -260 degrees Fahrenheit and preparing it for transport through the TransCameron Pipeline, a subterranean straw 24 miles long and 42 inches in diameter that undercuts the Louisiana Gulf Coast. The construction of CP2 is currently underway.

To get through multiple construction phases, Venture Global needed thousands of temporary workers, which is why the town is overflowing with camper trailers and trucks with out-of-state license plates.

Put simply, these plants are enormous. Venture Global has a permit from the Department of Energy to export more than 640 billion cubic feet of LNG per year, or 1.75 billion cubic feet per day, from the Calcasieu Pass facilities to free trade agreement and non-FTA nations alike. CP1 covers 432 acres of land, or more than 327 football fields, plus a mile of coastline. It has two berths for conventional LNG carrier ships, which can haul 185,000 cubic meters of LNG at a time and stretch nearly 1,000 feet long. CP2 is slated to be more than 2.5 times the size of CP1.

Brian DeBarge and Anthony “Tad” Theriot sit on Theriot’s 65-foot shrimp boat. It’s docked in the Gulf of Mexico, near the Calcasieu Ship Channel on the edge of Cameron, looking out over a horizon riddled with construction cranes and mountains of dirt. Dust dims the whole scene. A rusty barge that seems as big as a Boeing 747 floats by, dangling a long, clumsy chunk of pipeline from chains while a team of fluorescent-clad workers in welding masks runs around the ship’s deck. The wake picks up.

“I just don’t know how much these people think we can take,” DeBarge tells Atmos, watching the ship pass.

LNG burns cleaner than coal, positioning it as something of a golden child that rakes in money for the American energy industry while checking boxes for emission-reduction goals in the European Union. But back home in Cameron Parish, life has become hellish for DeBarge, Theriot, and their friend Philip Dyson, who shows up a little later. All three are multi-generational commercial fishermen who watched the LNG boom stomp out the shrimp-rich estuaries and oyster beds of coastal Louisiana over the last few years. All three have spent ample time sharing their stories with the media—stories of financial ruin, polluted and heavily trafficked waterways, family members injured in traffic accidents and sickened by cement dust, and looming fear for the future. All three still lack hope that anything’s going to change.

They aren’t alone. Many shrimpers in LNG boom communities used to make six-figure salaries and put their kids through college. Now, they struggle to afford healthcare and buy groceries on credit. Insurance has become a nice-to-have, while gas is an increasingly pricey necessity; not only has the price per gallon gone up, but fishermen must travel farther to find productive waters where they can make decent catches. More than 50% of the Cameron population has picked up and moved away since 2000 due to a dizzying combination of economic troubles, increasingly extreme weather, and a newly unrecognizable landscape.

DeBarge shakes his head, eyes still glued to the horizon. He mutters that a normal person would have lost it by now. When asked what that makes him, DeBarge laughs.

“Well, I think I’m getting a little more normal every day.”

Read the full article at Peshtigo Times

FLORIDA: Southwest Florida shrimpers battle an economic storm

September 30, 2026 — The Big Daddy shrimping vessel arrived at its San Carlos Island port Sept. 9, ready to unload 55,000 pounds of Gulf pink shrimp.

Capt. Michael Frost, 44, is deeply familiar with the event. A fourth-generation commercial fisherman, Frost has worked for his family’s shrimping operation — Trico Shrimp Co. — since childhood.

Trico closed after Hurricane Ian decimated the Gulf pink shrimp industry Sept. 28, 2022.

The industry remains centered on San Carlos Island in Lee County, where Matanzas Pass offers a port with convenient access to ever-reproducing seabed fields of “pink gold” southwest of the shoreline.

Like other independent contractors, Frost continues to harvest shrimp. He and his family members plan to rebuild their livelihood against increasing economic headwinds.

“It’s going to take a while to build back everything, but that’s our goal,” Frost said. “It’s just hard to walk away from something that you’ve been doing for so long.”

Meanwhile, Grant Erickson and his daughter Anna Erickson still run Erickson & Jensen Seafood, next door to the former Trico operation.

Since Trico closed, the more than 75-year-old Erickson & Jensen has been Lee County’s last remaining commercial shrimping operation.

Both the Ericksons and the Gala family, which co-owned Trico, run retail seafood markets near Fort Myers Beach.

The Ericksons, too, are determined to rebuild even though most of the San Carlos shrimping docks, their boats and other infrastructure were destroyed by Ian.

Read the full article at Gulf Shore Business

ALASKA: Juneau salmon troller takes helm of United Fishermen of Alaska

September 30, 2026 — The United Fishermen of Alaska, a trade association for commercial fishermen statewide, hired a new leader. Juneau-based commercial fisherman Thatcher Brouwer started as executive director of the organization on Sept. 15.

Outgoing executive director Tracy Welch said she left UFA after roughly five years as the executive director to take over as commissioner of the Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission earlier this year. She started as one of two commissioners of the commission back in May, joining the existing commissioner Rick Green. Her predecessor at CFEC Glenn Haight stepped down from the position in February.

Brouwer has been a commercial fisherman for over 20 years, according to a press release UFA posted on Sept. 21. During those two decades, he said he fished the Kodiak setnet fishery for a season. He has also fished the Southeast pot shrimp and salmon trolling seasons and halibut and black cod longline fisheries.

Read the full article at KMXT

NOAA Fisheries moves to allow rock shrimp trawling in Oculina Bank, despite concerns over rare coral

September 23, 2026 — NOAA Fisheries is seeking feedback on a plan to allow shrimp trawling in the Oculina Bank off the eastern coast of Florida, despite concerns that it could damage rare coral.

“Reopening the Oculina Bank to trawling places one of the crown jewels of U.S. oceans at potential risk and could destroy some of the last remaining ivory tree coral structures on the planet,” Oceana Marine Scientist Alex Aines said in a release. “This fragile and critically important area has been rightfully protected for more than 40 years, and there’s simply no good reason to reopen portions of it now or ever.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource