Indian Shrimp Industry Faces Trouble After Trump Tariffs
Turbulence stirred by President Donald Trump’s tariffs could disrupt global shrimp shipments to the United States, with exporters in top supplier India warning that up to 2,000 containers of frozen shrimp are at risk.
Ecuador, however—located thousands of kilometers closer to the U.S.—faces a lower tariff rate and may benefit from the shift, exporters say. Shrimp is the country’s most valuable export after oil.
India’s shrimp sector is bracing for a 26% tariff under Trump’s July plan, jeopardizing a $7-billion seafood export industry that relies heavily on major U.S. buyers like Walmart and Kroger. As uncertainty looms, exporters have slashed offer prices by 10%, and farmers are already seeing demand evaporate.
"Farmers are suffering," said S.V.L. Pathi Raju, 63, standing by the aquaculture pond where he feeds and grows shrimp in India's southern coastal state of Andhra Pradesh. "If the government intervenes and takes care of the feed prices and other things (input cost), we can sustain," added Raju, one of the several families in the state's remote village of Ganapavaram grappling with dwindling sales to exporters.
Many shrimp farmers are also burdened by high costs for feed and steep land rentals for the saline ponds used in cultivation.
The United States and China remain key destinations for Indian seafood exports, which hit a record $7.3 billion last year on a volume of 1.8 million metric tons. Shrimp was the dominant product, with the state of Andhra Pradesh leading the charge—its 300,000 farmers contributed the bulk of supplies and accounted for 92% of India’s $2.5 billion in seafood exports to the U.S., its largest market.
At one processing facility visited by Reuters, shrimp were washed and machine-sorted by size, followed by a manual quality check by workers in masks and gloves. Finally, a conveyor belt carried the seafood off to be flash-frozen for export.
Thousands of tons of frozen shrimp leave Andhra Pradesh each year on a voyage that usually takes 40 days to arrive at ports in New York, Houston and Miami, en route to restaurants and the shelves of retailers such as Safeway and Costco.
(Reuters)
