Mexico Tries To Catch US Tuna Market

Dolphin protection, tuna catch in conflict for U.S., Mexico

When President Obama dined with Mexico’s President Enrique Peña Nieto this month at the Mexican leader’s official residence, the meal started with “laminas de atun,” thin slices of tuna. The appetizer was not a surprising choice. Mexico has tried to get its yellowfin tuna on American plates for decades. Its fishermen are essentially frozen out of the lucrative U.S. market because they catch tuna with a method that has led to the demise of millions of dolphins, and falls below a standard U.S. officials set as “dolphin safe.”

But in recent months, Mexico has made progress in convincing the world that it is being treated unfairly because the U.S. tuna fishing regulation is not applied uniformly.

Mexico’s challenge is an attempt to increase its $7.5 million share of a U.S. tuna import market worth more than a half-billion dollars. But it also raises questions for U.S. consumers about whether the tuna they eat is truly “dolphin safe” — not sold at the expense of a mammal Americans cherish.

The World Trade Organization recently agreed with Mexico’s claim that U.S. regulations in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean, where the Mexican fleet fishes, are far more restrictive than they are for the western and central Pacific where the U.S. fleet fishes.

In response to the WTO ruling, the United States proposed a new rule to strengthen protections for dolphins wherever tuna is fished. The comment phase for the rule closed last week.

The proposal, drafted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, has one change that irks Mexico — allowing captains in the western and central Pacific to self-certify they are not taking dolphins as bycatch.

What's that smell?

Yeah, that'll work, because commercial fishermen never cheat when they know the law isn't looking.  I have a better idea, hire Mexicans to be observers on the US fleet to keep them sort of honest.  Not that Mexicans can't be bribed, but they can't be trusted to stay bought.


Linked at The Classic Liberal's Rule 5 compendium "Alice in Chains: Stone."