LEILA FADEL, HOST:
American shrimpers hoped that Trump administration tariffs on cheaper imports would provide a lifeline for their struggling industry. Some shrimpers say they have yet to see relief. Here's South Carolina Public Radio's Victoria Hansen.
VICTORIA HANSEN, BYLINE: It's dark and still on scenic Shem Creek near Charleston. Dockside restaurants have long called it a night. But Rocky Magwood is just getting to work. He takes to the large wooden wheel of his decades-old shrimp boat and heads for the abyss of the Charleston Harbor under the moonlight.
ROCKY MAGWOOD: You see Charleston in a different light than anybody else does right now. It's quiet. Nobody is upset with each other.
HANSEN: A respite from the fight that's engulfed Magwood's life washes over him as we drive through a cloud of white birds against the black sky. At sea is where this fourth-generation shrimper feels at home.
(SOUNDBITE OF WAVES CRASHING)
MAGWOOD: Some of the places I work, there's been - somebody in my family has been there for over 110 years, has been working that same area.
HANSEN: But this century-old family business is in jeopardy, even as Magwood reels in a giant net of freshly caught jumbo-sized shrimp.
(SOUNDBITE OF SHRIMP THUDDING)
HANSEN: A tsunami of cheaper imported shrimp floods the market, selling for as little as one-third of the price Magwood gets. Many shrimpers have gone under. Magwood remembers at least 80 shrimp boats on the creek when he was a kid. Now there are seven.
MAGWOOD: If somebody would've told me it would've looked like this today, I'd have never believed them.
HANSEN: The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates 90% of the shrimp Americans eat is imported from abroad, even along the coast. That's why shrimpers welcome tariffs. But the South Carolina Shrimpers Association, which Magwood heads, says importers got around the tariffs. They stockpiled foreign shrimp before tariffs hit this summer. That further inundated the market. So the South Carolina Shrimpers Association tried to compete with imports another way. It sued area restaurants it alleges buy foreign shrimp and falsely advertise as local. Ultimately, a judge decided the Shrimpers Association wasn't the right party to sue, says their attorney, Gedney Howe IV.
GEDNEY HOWE IV: It was never about shaking people down. It was trying to get some safeguards in place to try to create a system that kind of regulates itself because it's unregulated right now.
HANSEN: He says shrimpers here need a truth-in-menu law, like Louisiana, Texas, Alabama and Mississippi. It requires restaurants to disclose where they get their shrimp. Howe, whose stepfather is a shrimper, says they're running out of time.
HOWE: It's a piece of the culture that if we lose it, I don't think you can bring it back.
HANSEN: On his boat, Magwood gets the call he eagerly awaits every morning from his wife and son.
MAGWOOD: How'd your morning go, bubs?
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Good.
MAGWOOD: All right. Well, I love y'all.
HANSEN: Magwood grew up on a shrimp boat but says he's only taken his son out once.
MAGWOOD: And the reason I've done that is I don't want him to love this industry as much as I do. I don't want to see my son struggle.
HANSEN: As Magwood heads back to the docks, he's greeted by a statue of his late uncle, Wayne Magwood, a well-known local shrimper. It makes him feel proud and sad.
MAGWOOD: To think that, you know, this could really be the end of it. I might be the last one. That is heartbreaking to me.
HANSEN: Magwood says, like his uncle, he'll fight to save this coastal way of life. He can't imagine Shem Creek without a shrimp boat.
For NPR News, I'm Victoria Hansen in Charleston.
(SOUNDBITE OF BEACH HOUSE SONG, "SPACE SONG") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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