On April 29, 2024, a new report by the Sustainability Incubator was released detailing how low prices for shrimp in the United States are driving the exploitation of workers in Vietnam’s shrimp industry, which is highly dependent on exports to the United States. According to a summary of the report, “the price pressures of supermarket retailers have a direct impact on unpaid labor, human rights violations, labor exploitation and increasing vulnerability to forced labor” for shrimp industry workers in Vietnam.

The report calls the low prices for shrimp that retailers are demanding “irrational.” The report explains how these rock-bottom prices are leading shrimp producers in Vietnam to cut wages, reduce or eliminate overtime pay, demand longer hours, and restrict workers’ access to basic protective equipment. The report concludes that these practices violate Vietnam’s own labor laws and basic human rights.

“It is sickening to see yet another report documenting the horrific working conditions in foreign shrimp industries,” said Trey Pearson, the President of the American Shrimp Processors Association (ASPA). “These inhumane practices put the U.S. shrimp industry and its workers at an unfair disadvantage, at a time when we are already being gravely injured by dumped and subsidized shrimp imports.”

“ASPA has already called on the U.S. Department of Commerce and U.S. Customs and Border Protection to take action against imports of shrimp from India produced with forced labor, and we will look carefully at what additional steps can be taken on imports from Vietnam,” Mr. Pearson continued. “ASPA will continue to fight unfair trade in all of its forms.”

In October of 2023, ASPA filed antidumping and countervailing duty petitions on shrimp from Ecuador, India, Indonesia, and Vietnam. Those petitions documented more than 40 subsidy programs for shrimp producers in Vietnam alone, as well as the injury that imports from the four countries are causing to American shrimp processors and fishermen. Final determinations in ASPA’s cases are expected this fall.