Bayou La Batre Mayor Henry Barnes joined NewsNation on Saturday to discuss how President Donald Trump’s tariffs will impact the local fishing community across coastal Alabama.
The Mayor told the show’s host he believes that the tariff policy being enacted by the Trump administration will ultimately be of benefit to all employed in the shrimping industry in the region.
“It should raise the price of shrimp to the guys out there that’s catching it,” said Barnes. “They work very, very hard. They go out 30 to 40, some of them 50 days away from their family. It’s dangerous work, but they do it because they love it. It’s in their blood. It’s in their heart. It’s generational.”
Barnes explained that between the huge amounts of foreign imports flooding the market and the previous presidential administration, it’s been a difficult few years for those employed in the industry.
“It hurts us tremendously,” he noted. “With the last administration, when diesel fuel went up so high, diesel fuel cost more a gallon than they were getting paid for a pound of shrimp, and it just was not feasible to go out. So they stayed in. They didn’t go out. They kept their boats tied up, they dropped to what they call dockside insurance, which is still pretty high.”
Barnes, who has personally suffered from the difficult circumstances, emphasized that it’s not just Bayou La Batre dealing with these issues.
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“It hurt my business. I have a net shop. I build and repair shrimp nets, and it hurt my business tremendously,” said Barnes. “It’s hurt every business. It’s marine hardware businesses and truck drivers. It’s the people who work in these plants. They hire 40 to 50, sometimes 60 people to work in these plants. That’s 40 to 50, to 60 families suffering because of these foreign imports. It’s not just our city. It’s all from Brownsville, Texas all the way up to the East Coast in North Carolina. All these guys are hurting, and it’s been going on for years. It’s just the last few years, it’s gotten even worse.”
The Mayor called Trump’s tariff policy a “reformation.”
“This reformation is going to have growing pains. It’s going to hurt some people. It’s going to make some people happy. It’s kind of like when I ran for office; I knew I wasn’t going to make 100% of the people in my city happy, but I might make this guy happy one day, and then next day I’ll make his neighbor happy and then he won’t be happy. So it balances out.”
Barnes had a message for President Trump.
“Don’t back down,” he said. “This is a reformation for our country, the whole country. This country has needed to change for years. We’re paying people not to work. We’re teaching people to depend on the government. We have people who don’t even know what bathroom to go to. That’s ridiculous.”
“We need to grow up, straighten up, and move forward.”
Austen Shipley is the News Director for Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on X @ShipleyAusten
