As this AP article explains, there is a long history of trade disputes involving the U.S. catfish industry and its Vietnamese competitors, including anti-dumping duties and labelling regulations. The latest chapter is particularly interesting, though, because it gets at what I think could be a growth industry for trade disputes: food and product safety inspections. From the article:
U.S. farmers ... want the Vietnamese imports [to] be covered by a new inspections regime that they pushed through Congress last year.
...
The inspections requirement could be the U.S. producers' silver bullet, stopping imports in their tracks. Applying to all catfish sold in the U.S., it would require Vietnam to establish a complicated inspection system and demonstrate that it is equivalent to U.S. inspections, a process that could take years.
...
Seafood typically is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, which administers spot inspections that are relatively easy for foreign countries to participate in. Cochran's provision singles out catfish as the only seafood to be regulated by the Agriculture Department, which traditionally oversees only beef, pork and poultry products.
... in various forums, the industry has argued that the new inspections would prevent scares like those involving lead-tainted toys or poisonous dog food that could damage the image of their product. The industry has pointed out that the FDA inspects only around 2 percent of seafood imports and that a better system is needed to keep banned chemicals out of the U.S. They also point to cases in which importers have been caught selling pangasius under false names and avoiding tariffs.
Food safety is clearly an important domestic policy. And ensuring the safety of imported foods is particularly difficult, so some sort of inspection regime for foreign-produced food seems reasonable to me. However, getting the right balance between effective regulation and burdens on foreign companies could be difficult and contentious.
