Honduras shrimp industry worried by diplomatic break with Taiwan

Honduras shrimp industry worried by diplomatic break with Taiwan
By Noe LEIVA
Choluteca, Honduras (AFP) April 7, 2023

On the Pacific coast of Honduras, thousands of people working in the shrimp farming industry are worried about their futures following the government's decision to break diplomatic ties with their largest export market: Taiwan.

"We don't want them to stop business with Taiwan," Lorena de Jesus Zelaya, 51, who works in a shrimp packing plant, said to AFP.

Along with another 800 women, she works in a warehouse in Choluteca, around 85 kilometers (50 miles) south of the capital Tegucigalpa, where frozen shrimp is packaged and sent in refrigerated containers to Taiwan, Mexico and Europe.

Wearing a hat, apron and rubber shoes, Zelaya told AFP she has worked in the shrimp industry for 31 years.

Leftist President Xiomara Castro announced last month that she was breaking off diplomatic relations with Taiwan and signing on with China instead.

Shrimp workers fear that move could jeopardize the free-trade agreement between Honduras and Taiwan, signed in 2008, on which their livelihoods largely depend.

"For Honduras, as a shrimp producer, losing the Taiwanese market is a very difficult situation in terms of price levels," businessman Yader Rodriguez, 46, told AFP.

"Taiwan is a high-value market where our shrimp can sell at almost twice the price of the Chinese market."

Although the Chinese economy is 12 times larger than Taiwan's, "we're very worried about what this political decision will bring," he added.

Rodriguez said shrimp exports are worth about $100 million a year.

Although Taiwan is a self-ruled democratic island, China claims it as part of its territory to be integrated into the nation one day, by force if necessary.

Beijing refuses to have diplomatic relations with countries that recognize Taipei.

Castro's move followed in the footsteps of several other Latin American countries in recent years, including Nicaragua, El Salvador, Panama, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic.

It leaves Taiwan with only 13 diplomatic allies, including Guatemala and Belize, which President Tsai Ing-wan visited last week.

- Government 'open to listening' -

The shrimp are farmed in huge artificial ponds using seawater from the nearby Gulf of Fonseca.

Since it launched in the 1970s, shrimp farming exploded in Honduras, with 324 farms covering an area of 24,500 hectares (60,000 acres).

Around 23,000 people are directly employed in the industry, but that figure rises to 150,000 when including those indirectly dependent on shrimp farming.

The National Aquaculturists Association of Honduras (ANDAH) has expressed its concerns in several meetings with authorities.

They fear Taiwan could simply refuse to buy shrimp from the Central American nation and have asked the government to write to Taiwan requesting the continuation of trade relations despite the diplomatic rupture.

"The government is open to listening and looking for solutions," said ANDAH president Juan Carlos Javier, adding that more than a third of shrimp export revenue last year came from Taiwan.

While the government has said nothing about its trade agreement with Taiwan, many people are deeply concerned about the ramifications of ending diplomatic cooperation.

"All the families are worried ... about this (trade) agreement they want to break," Carlos Abrego, 28, who works for a shrimp company, told AFP.

"We are really are very worried because here where we live, it's very serious to lose your job or to take a pay cut," added laborer Pedro Antonio Martinez, 34.

Shrimp is the fifth largest export for Honduras after coffee, bananas, sugar and palm oil.

Last year, the country's exports were worth $6.1 billion, with $130 million of that coming from Taiwan.

US urges China to choose 'diplomacy' not 'pressure' on Taiwan
Washington (AFP) April 6, 2023 - The United States called Thursday on China to choose diplomacy rather than military pressure on Taiwan after Beijing deployed warships following a meeting by the island's leader with the US House speaker.

"We continue to urge Beijing to cease its military, diplomatic and economic pressure against Taiwan and instead engage in meaningful diplomacy," State Department spokesman Vedant Patel told reporters.

"We remain committed to maintaining open channels of communication so as to prevent the risk of any kind of miscalculation," Patel said.

Patel acknowledged "differences" between the United States and China over Taiwan but said that the two powers have managed the situation for 40 years.

President Tsai Ing-wen met Wednesday in California with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a Republican who became the highest ranking American to see a Taiwanese president on US soil since Washington switched recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979.

China, which had warned against the visit, deployed warships to the Taiwan Strait -- although the initial reaction was less than when McCarthy's predecessor, Democrat Nancy Pelosi, visited Taipei in August.

The United States characterized Tsai's visit as a "transit" on her way to and from Latin America.

"There is no reason to turn this transit, which is consistent with longstanding US policy, into something that it's not or to use it as a pretext to overreact," Patel said.