Author: Anbinh Phan, Woodrow Wilson School of Public Policy and International Affairs 
 
Trade wars between the United States and Vietnam accelerate as catfish farmers in the Southern region of the US lose sizeable business to catfish farmers in Vietnam. In response, food-labeling practices now differentiate “Made in Vietnam” catfish. US farmers run ads and claim that the fish grown in the Mekong Delta in Vietnam are raised under unsanitary conditions and are possibly contaminated with a chemical agent used during the Vietnam War: Agent Orange. In addition, the US farmers contend that the Vietnamese state subsidizes its farmers, thereby lowering the prices of catfish enabling “dumping” in the US market and decreasing profits for thousands of Mississippi farmers.
 
In accordance with the anti-dumping suit filed on June 28, 2001, by the United States Association of Catfish Farmers of America (CFA), a group representing the Mississippi Delta Farmers, to the International Trade Committee and the US Department of Commerce against the frozen catfish from Vietnam; and in response to the 2001 US Senate law forcing Vietnamese exporters to label their catfish- ‘Tra’ or ‘Basa’- a similar subspecies, the Vietnamese government is crying fowl against American trade policy.