A shrimp boat is refurbished for Quality Seafood’s fleet in Palacios, Texas. — AP
WHILE American consumers and businesses fret over President Donald Trump’s tariff policies, one struggling group is cheering him on: Gulf coast shrimpers.
These shrimpers have been hit hard in recent years by a wave of cheap imported shrimp flooding the US market and dominating restaurant menus. Prices have plummeted, profits have thinned to a razor’s edge, and many local operators are fighting to stay afloat.
Tariffs, they hope, might level the playing field.
“It’s been tough the last several years that we’ve tried to fight through this,” said Reed Bowers, owner of Bowers Shrimp Farm in Palacios, Texas.
Tough times have forced difficult decisions – “cutting people off, laying people off, or reducing hours or wages ... whatever we can do to survive,” Bowers said.
Shrimp are prepared for shipping at the Bowers Shrimp Processing plant, Wednesday, April 9, 2025, in Palacios, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
Since 2021, the price of imported shrimp has dropped by more than US$1.5bil, according to the Southern Shrimp Alliance, a trade group representing domestic producers. The result: the US shrimp industry has lost nearly half its market value.
The alliance argues that foreign shrimp farms enjoy massive advantages – billions in government support, lax or non-existent labour and environmental standards, and practices such as antibiotic use that are banned in the United States.
More than 90% of shrimp consumed in the US is imported, according to the alliance.
“I’m not a believer in free trade. I’m a believer in fair trade,” Bowers said. “If you’re going to sell into the United States, you should follow the same rules and regulations I have to follow as a farmer here.”
Craig Wallis, owner of W&W Dock & Ice, has been in the shrimping business since 1975. Back then, shrimpers could run their boats year-round.
Shrimp being prepared at the Bowers Shrimp Processing plant in Palacios, Texas. — AP
Now, he says, that’s no longer financially viable.
He can afford to run his boats only about half the year – but the bills, he notes, “keep coming every month”.
“We don’t get any subsidies here,” Wallis said. “We don’t need any help from the government. What we get for our product is what we have to make on it.”
Wallis, a Trump supporter, is hopeful the tariffs could give local shrimpers some breathing room.
“I don’t know where the tariffs are going to be settled at,” he said, “but it’s definitely going to help.”
At the same time, he acknowledges a trade-off. Tariffs could raise the cost of gear – trawl cables, netting, chains, shackles – much of which is imported and already creeping up in price.
“We have to be careful that there’s a good balance,” he said.
Wallis, now 72, fears what the future could look like if the domestic shrimping industry collapses.
He imagines foreign trawlers operating in the Gulf of Mexico, which Trump has rebranded the “Gulf of America”.
Manager Ken Garcia visiting a shrimp boat being refurbished for their Quality Seafood fleet in Palacios, Texas.
“I’m hanging on to have something when I retire,” he said. “If it keeps going like it is, it’ll take away from my retirement – what I’ve worked for all my life.”
Phan Tran’s family used to be in shrimping but left the boats behind 25 years ago to open Tran’s Family Restaurant – a place they literally built by hand.
“It was just my dad, me and one welder,” Tran said.
Tran prefers to serve only domestic shrimp. He distrusts the quality and ethics behind foreign imports and says the difference in taste is unmistakable.
“The taste, the size, the texture – you can tell,” he said. “Domestic shrimp versus imported shrimp, you can tell the difference.”
He still buys straight from the docks when he can.
“As long as we have the restaurant business, that’s what we’ll do.”
Tran once put a sign in the restaurant window that read, *“Friends don’t let friends eat imported shrimp.”* He eventually took it down after some customers complained.
“But that’s a true statement that we stand by here,” he added.
Bowers, the shrimp farm owner, hopes tariffs will have a ripple effect that ultimately benefits US producers.
“I think the price of imported seafood is going to go up,” he said. “And as that price comes up, it’ll make our seafood, our shrimp, more affordable for everybody else.” — AP
