- 8 minutes ago
Imported shrimp killed the American industry. Can the trade war bring it back?
Category
😹
FunTranscript
00:01Almost all of the shrimp Americans eat is imported.
00:05And India is the biggest supplier, with $2.5 billion worth of exports to the U.S. in 2024.
00:13This is Black Tiger producing the hub of Gujarat, that's for sure.
00:18These crustaceans have generated so much money for India, that once poor rural areas now look completely different.
00:27But in 2025, that momentum was shaken when the Trump administration imposed up to 50% tariffs on Indian shrimp
00:35headed to the U.S.
00:36Whatever India charges, we're charging them.
00:39People's livelihood is under question mark because of the trade war. It's very unfortunate.
00:46The tariffs were meant to help American fishermen who catch wild shrimp and have been competing with cheap imports for
00:52decades.
00:53They're killing us. The farmers are killing us.
00:57But tariffs haven't yet been as helpful as some expected.
01:01What has helped is secret food testing.
01:05Watchdog groups have caught restaurants and food festivals selling imported shrimp as locally caught.
01:11Imagine going into 44 restaurants and getting lied to sometimes 43 times.
01:16It makes you passionate about this type of work.
01:20So who really wins and loses when a trade war hits an industry this global?
01:25We visited a shrimp farm in Gujarat and tested shrimp dishes ourselves in Louisiana to see what's actually happening on
01:32both sides of the world's shrimp supply chain.
01:40Gujarat is one of India's biggest shrimp producing states.
01:44In the mid-1990s, Manoj Sharma and a group of local farmers began digging ponds for shrimp farms and created
01:50channels to bring in brackish tidal water from the sea.
01:53We just started with four ponds.
01:55Now I'm talking to you, it's almost like 25,000 acres have been developed in Gujarat.
02:02They fill these ponds with baby shrimp.
02:04That's the riskiest part of the process.
02:07If the babies are infected with a viral disease called white spot, which can't be treated with antibiotics, an entire
02:14pond can be wiped out in a day.
02:17Manoj's ponds are clear because they wash down tires and boots and have bleaching and hand washing stations.
02:23We have put a lot of biosecurity measures in.
02:25One of that is this bird net you could see because birds are biggest carriers.
02:30The U.S. market was a big part of this success story.
02:3450% of what Manoj harvested last year ended up in the states.
02:38But most of these ponds are empty now because he rushed to harvest as much as he could before the
02:43tariffs hit.
02:44This is called Monodon black tiger shrimp.
02:47And this is my answer to the Trump tariff and travel because this shrimp doesn't go to U.S.
02:53This is a very premium grade goes to Japan, China and Europe.
02:57This is almost 65, 70 gram animal.
03:00Manoj's team sends the harvested shrimp and oxygenated tanks to this facility called Mintola Foods,
03:06which processes up to 7,700 tons a year.
03:11Zubin Meheta oversees every step.
03:14So you can see the shrimp is actually live from the farm.
03:21The shrimp are first chilled down to 32 degrees Fahrenheit to kill them.
03:25So the process will be for almost 10 minutes.
03:33Now the fresh shrimp will be going in the bubble washing area.
03:38Which removes any mud or debris the shrimp might carry over from the ponds.
03:43About 950 people work at this plant.
03:46Many of them spend their days doing this, painstakingly removing the digestive tracts,
03:52essentially the shrimp's poop line.
03:53So this product over here is what we call as PD.
03:58Peel devein.
04:00There is no shell, no head, no vein.
04:06This machine separates the headless shrimp by size.
04:12Then they take a trip down this quick freezing tunnel that's about minus 42 degrees.
04:17Now you can see the frozen product coming out of the ice here,
04:22entering into this water bath.
04:24What we call it as glazing.
04:26Before glazing, rough.
04:28After glazing, nice and shiny.
04:31That glaze also provides a protective layer of ice.
04:34The head on shrimp, like those premium black tiger ones,
04:38go into a salty solution that preserves the texture and flavor.
04:41You can see the brine shower.
04:44When we pass the necks through the shower,
04:48within the 12 minutes, almost 80% of the shrimp is already frozen.
04:53Workers handle and sort the shrimp.
04:55They're removing any pieces with defects,
04:57or those that are soft and usually sized or broken.
05:01The machine can grade the size, but machine cannot identify the color,
05:06or if the animal is soft, loose, broken.
05:10So human touch is required.
05:13This group is packing and weighing the final boxes.
05:22Every carton over here has a code.
05:26We can trace this product in this factory right from the pond
05:30up to who is going to pack the product.
05:33The factory can hold about 6.6 million pounds of shrimp in its cold storage.
05:39This will end up in markets like Japan, Europe, China, and the US.
05:44This one, this is a Belgium product.
05:47It is a buyer's brand.
05:48But could all of this be at risk?
05:51In early 2025, the Trump administration imposed 10% tariffs on India,
05:56but threatened higher.
05:58In response, shrimp imports spiked as big farming countries tried to get their
06:03product to the US before tariffs got worse.
06:05The US had a record first half of 2025 in imports.
06:10Then, in August 2025, the Trump administration raised the tariffs on India to 50%
06:16and imposed duties on Ecuador, Indonesia, and Vietnam, the biggest shrimp producing countries.
06:22Together, they account for over 90% of what America imports.
06:27When Indian shrimp producers send a shipment to the US, the importers pay that 50% tariff.
06:32But that may mean the US company will raise its prices and ultimately pass on some of that extra fee
06:38to customers.
06:39I would say that the tariffs are being absorbed throughout the supply chain.
06:43This added cost discouraged US companies from buying from India.
06:48Before the tariffs, a fourth of what Mendola processed ended up stateside.
06:52But to avoid the mess, since April 2025, the factory hasn't processed a single container bound for the US.
07:04Now, these tariffs are something folks in Louisiana's shrimp business have long asked for.
07:09It's the biggest shrimp-catching state.
07:12Nearly a third of the country's wild stock is caught here.
07:15We can only produce roughly 5%, 6%, 7% of all shrimp consumed here in the United States domestically.
07:22We're too dependent on imported shrimp.
07:25Which is why cheaper imports have flooded the US market, driving down dock prices in Louisiana for decades.
07:32They've fallen nearly 65% between 1980 and 2022.
07:37In the same amount of time so many people have left the industry that the number of licensed shrimpers in
07:42the state has dropped 80%.
07:46Captain Lonnie Mayhew Jr. catches small brown shrimp off the coast of Grand Isle, Louisiana.
07:521982 I was getting 60 cents a pound. Today I'm getting 50 cents.
07:58At 83 years old, Lonnie, who goes by Knuckles, has been trawling these waters for over six decades.
08:05Because it's shrimp run at night time on the top of the water.
08:08We are fishing on top of the water.
08:11We're not dragging anything on the bottom.
08:15The nets go down 12 feet, and the water's about 30 feet here.
08:23He throws back anything that isn't shrimp, like catfish or crabs.
08:28We ain't got a pound of shrimp. It's all catfish.
08:33Tonight, he's one of just three shrimpers working these waters.
08:36They used to have 75 to 100 in this past.
08:40And that was in the 80s. A lot of them gone out of business.
08:46Fishermen like Lonnie thought tariffs could be the answer to this sinking business.
08:50But he says they've done nothing to raise the price of his cheaper, smaller shrimp.
08:56Others say the verdict is still out on whether they've made a difference.
09:00It all depends on who you talk to about tariffs.
09:02You know, it helps some people, it doesn't help other people, you know.
09:04Ever since I've seen it come into play, I mean, we've got higher prices this year than we did last
09:08year.
09:09You know, I mean, I find it's helping a little bit.
09:13Tariffs have also made imported shrimp more expensive.
09:17But it's still cheaper than what U.S. shrimpers catch and sell at wholesale.
09:22For a lot of shrimpers, it's not just about the money.
09:26They're worried about losing an industry they've been in for generations.
09:30It's just in my blood. I'm four generations. My son makes five generations.
09:35It's just something that we just did all our life. It's our freedom, you know.
09:39Many of their ancestors started commercial fishing here in the 1900s,
09:43when shrimp was considered a luxury in most of the U.S.
09:46People would pay big bucks to get it transported on ice,
09:49to toss it into shrimp salads or perch it on cocktail glasses.
09:52In the 1950s, techniques to freeze shrimp and new refrigerated trucks
09:57brought the Gulf seafood as far as the East Coast and Chicago.
10:01By 1970, demand across the U.S. had tripled.
10:05Domestic shrimpers caught more, with Louisiana leading the pack.
10:09In the 1990s, the state's shrimp and shellfish generated nearly $2 billion
10:14and supported 22,000 jobs.
10:17Shrimpers could become millionaires.
10:19Upon the 2000s, the crustacean was the number one seafood in the U.S.
10:24At the same time, advances were made in aquaculture technology
10:28and farms in Asia and South America started raising a lot more shrimp.
10:33In less than a decade, farming production skyrocketed nearly 200%,
10:38overtaking global catches of shrimp.
10:41For the first time, Americans ate more imported shrimp than domestic.
10:47By 2022, the U.S. was importing 1.8 billion pounds of the crustacean,
10:53exactly as much as the American population consumed.
10:58And much of it came from India, where labor is cheaper than in the U.S.
11:04But back in the Gulf, fishermen are struggling with soaring input costs
11:08for things like ice and fuel.
11:11For this boat to leave the dock, it's going to cost me over $1,000.
11:14They're killing us. The farmers are killing us.
11:17Right now, nobody want to do it no more because they're struggling.
11:21And it's not enough to pay, especially when you have two kids in college.
11:26You're struggling.
11:29Knuckles thought he'd be able to sell his boat and retire.
11:32I got no retirement, but I can't sell a boat.
11:36Can't give it away.
11:38Everybody wants it.
11:41What locals say has helped a lot more than tariffs?
11:44Testing shrimp at restaurants.
11:46People were using the cachet of wild American-caught seafood, particularly shrimp,
11:52to sell product for a premium and then serve them an imported farm-rich shrimp.
12:00Dave Williams founded a company called Seed Consulting that gathers samples of shrimp
12:04and runs a genetic test to see if what's listed on menus is actually what's being served.
12:11We followed Dave's daughter, Erin, on a collection mission to Nikkei Izakaya,
12:16a Japanese restaurant in New Orleans.
12:18We also got samples from two restaurants ourselves,
12:21Le Bayou and Pat O'Brien's, the inventor of the Hurricane Cocktail.
12:25Hey, my name's Nathan. I'm here in New Orleans, specifically in the French Quarter,
12:29where there are just tons of seafood restaurants.
12:32And so I'm going to go eat some shrimp, check out a couple different spots,
12:35and then we'll send some of the shrimp to the lab to get tested to see if they're actually serving
12:40what they're saying they're serving.
12:41Both Erin and Nathan wore plain clothes and kept their identities secret.
12:47Hi there, how's it going?
12:48Hello, good. How are you doing?
12:50First they look at the menu for any red flags, including vague wording like New Orleans style or Cajun shrimp.
12:57But all three of these restaurants say on their menu that they serve local shrimp.
13:01If I see gulf shrimp on the menu and then let's say I'll ask the waiter where the shrimp comes
13:08from and they're not too sure,
13:10that might be a general red flag.
13:12All right, what can I get for you?
13:13I'm looking at the Nikkei Royal. Is that gulf shrimp, is that local to here?
13:18It is, yes. Local gulf shrimp.
13:21Oh, very awesome. Yeah, I'll definitely take an order of that, please.
13:23Okay, excellent.
13:25Is it gulf shrimp from Delta, Mexico?
13:28Yeah. Okay, I'll take a po'boy.
13:31If the waiter is unsure of the origin, Erin says you can always ask to see the box the shrimp
13:36came in.
13:36Which will definitely have the country of origin indication on it.
13:41Great. Here we have the Nikkei Royal.
13:45Oh, wow.
13:46Careful with that, that's hot.
13:47It looks amazing, thank you so much.
13:49I hope you enjoy it, thank you.
13:49It's always nice whenever you see a part of the tail.
13:53Because of the wild factor of it, it ranges in size, sometimes the peels are a little different.
14:00So you see here that this shrimp sizing versus this one, they're a little different.
14:05Whereas a farm shrimp is going to be more uniform.
14:08Visually to me, it does look like a domestic wild caught shrimp.
14:12However, eyes are deceived many times.
14:16If a restaurant lies about that on the menu, that's explicit fraud.
14:20And here in Louisiana, it's illegal and can amount to a $15,000 fine for the first offense.
14:25But there's another kind of implicit fraud that's also illegal.
14:29When a restaurant's advertising leads consumers to believe they're getting a local seafood when they're not.
14:35If you're on the coast and your restaurant's called Captain Tom's Shrimp Boat, then you should really be selling local
14:43shrimp.
14:43We've found numerous examples where, you know, the restaurant gives the impression and even on the menu that they're serving
14:50a domestic wild caught shrimp when in fact testing shows otherwise.
14:54Then our investigators collected samples in a to-go box.
14:58Just scraping off some of the cheese to throw in here.
15:01So we just need a big enough piece of the tissue to get to the core of the shrimp to
15:06take that sample.
15:06So we've been able to do gumbos, shrimp cakes.
15:11So I just left La Bayou.
15:13The shrimp is very small and one of the fishermen that I was talking to this morning said you need
15:18to be really cautious when you're buying that little shrimp.
15:20Because that's usually places like Ecuador and India are sending here to America.
15:24So I will be interested to see what the results show.
15:30They put the shrimp in numbered bags, making sure not to reveal the origin to the testers at the lab.
15:35We're going to go do a blind test.
15:38We can't have any form of bias.
15:41Technicians remove a tiny piece about the width of a toothpick.
15:44They put it through a rapid genetic tester.
15:47If the shrimp species comes back as little Penae as Vena Mae, it means it's imported because that type is
15:53only found in the eastern Pacific.
15:56If it's brown, white or pink shrimp, it's from the Gulf.
16:00When SEED first started its Louisiana independent testing program in 2025, it found that one in four shrimp dishes were
16:08mislabeled and fraudulent.
16:09And it wasn't the only state with a problem.
16:12We've done an eight-state study. 65% of all the restaurants were inauthentic.
16:18For example, in Florida, Dave's team found that as much as 96% of shrimp labeled wild-caught was actually
16:26imported.
16:27But shrimp is shrimp, so why does it matter if it's imported or not?
16:31Well, this type of fraud costs the Louisiana shrimp industry a lot of money.
16:35It's about $225,000 a day.
16:39I just feel like it's the biggest slap in the face to our fishers.
16:45I mean, people selling product on the backs of struggling fishers, it's just about as bad as I could think
16:57of.
16:57It also hurts restaurants that are labeling accurately.
17:01So basically, the honesty tax is the tax that you have to pay for being real.
17:08And at the end of the day, it's really consumers who are left footing the bill.
17:12They're paying a super premium because of their belief in authenticity.
17:17After months of testing at fairs and restaurants in and around NOLA, Dave's team has seen authenticity rates go up.
17:24Now, they sit above 90%.
17:27The Shrimp and Petroleum Festival, the first time we went there, 80% of those samples were imported product.
17:34Fortunately, this year, we went back and tested, and all the samples that we took were authentic.
17:41So they've gone from a good-bad example to a good example.
17:46The results for our tests came in a few hours later, and all three of these restaurants were telling the
17:52truth.
17:53Dave says Seed's work has not only led to more honesty on menus, but it's also had a greater effect
17:59on Gulf shrimp prices than tariffs.
18:02The price of shrimp started going up before tariffs were in place.
18:06We've had a big effect in Louisiana on restaurants serving local products.
18:12Bringing consumer awareness to the situation, I think, is a very big thing.
18:19Back in India, Zubin's team at Mindola is also doing some testing.
18:23They're checking for any traces of antibiotics.
18:27This is our antibiotic residue analysis area.
18:30We are testing at three levels.
18:32When it comes to the farm, from the farm to processing, at receiving level, and in finished product level.
18:38The shrimp should not contain any banned antibiotic.
18:41That is chlorophenical nitrofurone metabolites.
18:44In the past, big shrimp farms in southern India have been found treating shrimp ponds with antibiotics.
18:51But here in Gujarat, Manoj says his ponds are free of them.
18:55I am not a big fan of super-intensive and high-stocking densities.
18:59My idea of farming is to grow with a very environmental-friendly approach.
19:07Manoj has been so successful, he's launched a restaurant to sell his shrimp.
19:11And a private label of both shrimp feed and packaged shrimp.
19:15To keep all this running, he employs as many as 200 people.
19:19Mahindra Jadav is one such employee.
19:22He grew up in this area and has worked for Manoj for 22 years.
19:26He now manages a 124-acre farm for him.
19:35You could see the prosperity which has been, the luxury which has been added to the rural areas of Gujarat.
19:42Long-term workers now earn $7,000 to $10,000 a year, as much as four times the average salary
19:48in Gujarat.
19:49They also get food, medical care, and share of profits.
19:53In February 2026, the Supreme Court ruled Trump's emergency tariffs were illegal.
19:58In turn, Trump threatened an executive order of a 10% global tariff.
20:02While that still would be better for Manoj, he isn't counting on the U.S. anymore.
20:08In long-term, it can be a good blessing.
20:11So definitely people will look into new markets.
20:13We can look for non-U.S., non-Chinese markets.
20:18There are more than 193 countries.
20:20He's also focusing on consumers within India.
20:23I'm a big fan, personally, of domestic consumption.
20:28I am saying, soon, we'll not be dependent upon any country.
20:33And they cannot manipulate our profession or our career, our future.
20:40Just like Louisiana shrimpers, who beg Americans to consume more of what comes out of the Gulf.
20:47Buy local. Buy local. That's all it is.
20:49Don't buy from Walmart. Don't buy from your big name brand stores, because you're just killing the little people like
20:54us.
20:55For people to say, let's just eat the domestic shrimp, I mean, I just think we're doing that.
21:00So what are we going to do with the rest of the demand?
21:03We need imports or else shrimp's going to be off the menu completely.
21:08This Louisiana shrimp's true and true every time.
21:12Can't beat it.
21:15Can't beat it.
Comments