The Cat Fish Dispute
The passage is about the catfish dispute between the two countries U.S and Vietnam. The use of aquaculture for human benefits started thousands of years ago like Scallops, Oysters, Salmon, and Catfish and they are raised in a controlled environment. The aquaculture is the fastest growing segment for united state. The catfish is the countries third favorite seafood and the catfish industry wants to go further. Cat fish are thick skinned whiskered wide mouthed and is typically described as pungent, buny, and muddy. Catfish are raised in clay based ponds filled with fresh water pumped from underground wells. The United States is the leading market for the Vietnamese catfish. At the end of 2001 the price of us catfish had dropped dramatically and both the countries blame each others for the price fall. The United States offer jobs in the poorest part of the America and now they think these jobs are now stolen by the cheap Vietnamese imports. A trade agreement called BTA was signed by the two country and these agreement due to some lacking was in favor of the Vietnamese and they capture 20% of the U.S market. Seeing this the U.S catfish producers want label in the catfish to identify different kind of catfish and gave some name like BASA, TRA for the Vietnamese catfish. They also said the Vietnamese catfish is low quality and raised in dirty waters. The result of the labeling was just the opposite. The sales increase of the Vietnamese catfish. Now the U.S catfish industry request ITC for importing tariffs as high as 191 percent. They imposed tariffs to 34 to 64 percent. The Vietnamese denounce the action and offer some alternatives but the ITC was stick to their decision. Thus make the Vietnamese stop their trade in the United States. Here we see the developed country always want to hold a position in the world market and they let no one to take their place.
Question: 1
The United States is the leading market for the catfish and they also import catfish from other countries like Vietnam. An agreement called BTA was signed by George W. Bush. In the agreement the U.S opened the door for increased bilateral trade and reduction in tariffs resulted in increase from 5 million pounds of frozen fillets in 1999 to 34 million in 2002. Thus capturing 20% of the U.S market. The Vietnamese catfish importers capture the market share of the U.S and its quite fare because the agreement lacks of a formal and neutral dispute settlement mechanism.
Question: 2
The U.S catfish industry decides to introduce labeling bill for the Vietnamese catfish as they believe that the catfish of the U.S is different from the Vietnamese. According to the U.S catfish producers they think their catfish is far better than the Vietnamese and they claimed than the Vietnamese catfish are raised in dirty waters and they are low in quality. so they imposed labeling regulation on the Vietnamese catfish. While the U.S catfish producer was counting on the labeling decision to decrease sales of Vietnamese catfish the result was just the opposite. Their sales increased. so here the label regulation didnt make the consumers to pay a higher price than they would pay otherwise.
Question: 3
The U.S industry of catfish request the International Trade Commission to import tariffs as high as 191 percent. The DOC with some assumption decides to impose tariffs to 34to64 percent and the ITC confirm the DOC s action.ITC confirmed the tariffs and the Vietnamese stop their trade because of the high tariffs. So here the CFA ( catfish farmers of America) in the united states influence the lawmakers to take decision in their favor.
