Mobile Courant

U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville from Alabama has joined forces with Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana to reintroduce the Prioritizing Offensive Agricultural Disputes and Enforcement Act. This legislation is designed to remove trade barriers that negatively impact American farmers, producers, and businesses, which can lead to increased prices for consumers. The bill seeks to protect U.S. agriculture while ensuring that food sold in the United States meets national health standards.

"America’s ag industry can out-compete anyone in the world—as long as the rules are fair," stated Senator Tuberville. "But right now, our farmers, producers, and fishermen are suffering because of foreign countries violating their trade obligations. We must level the playing field to bolster our domestic ag industry. We must eliminate barriers to our agriculture exports. I will continue to keep working to remove red tape for those in our ag industry."

Senators John Boozman from Arkansas and Joni Ernst from Iowa have also joined Tuberville and Cassidy in supporting this legislation, which Tuberville had previously cosponsored during the 118th Congress.

The proposed act will establish a joint task force on agricultural trade enforcement led by the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR). This task force will monitor industrial subsidies from countries like India and China more proactively instead of responding after these subsidies have been implemented. The task force is required to report its recommendations to Congress regarding unfair subsidies such as India's shrimp dumping practices that reduce income for American fishermen.

By creating a USDA-USTR task force, the bill aims to hold accountable nations like India for agricultural WTO violations while providing regular updates to Congress and industry stakeholders about these efforts.

Since 2005, antidumping duties have been imposed by the U.S., along with reviews on these duties concerning shrimp imports due to unfair trade practices. These practices have flooded the U.S. market with foreign shrimp, drastically reducing prices per pound from $6.50 in 1980 to under $1 today, leading domestic harvesters out of business and allowing foreign entities significant control over this market segment.

In Alabama alone, shrimp farmers produce between 200,000 and 300,000 pounds of farm-raised shrimp annually. In 2022, commercial wild-shrimp landings reached approximately 24.3 million pounds valued at over $52 million.

As a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee representing Alabama, Senator Tuberville has actively worked towards strengthening domestic agriculture through initiatives like reintroducing both the Protecting America’s Agricultural Land from Foreign Harm Act and Foreign Adversary Risk Management (FARM) Act.