Global shippers await word on US plan to hit China-linked vessels with port fees

Lisa Baertlein, Andrea Shalal and Jonathan Saul

Thu, Apr 17, 2025, 4:06 AM 4 min read

By Lisa Baertlein, Andrea Shalal and Jonathan Saul

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The U.S. Trade Representative's bureau volition denote its program connected Thursday for levying larboard fees connected China-linked ships arsenic portion of President Donald Trump's effort to revive home shipbuilding and antagonistic China's dominance connected the precocious seas.

April 17, the one-year day of erstwhile USTR launched its probe into China's maritime activities, is the statutory deadline for the bureau to finalize its remedies aft concluding successful January that China uses unfair policies and practices to predominate planetary shipping.

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer past week said the bureau would not use each aspects of its archetypal interest proposal, which outlined a scope of options to penalize China, including million-dollar larboard fees for ships with ties to China.

USTR had nary contiguous remark connected the details of its plans.

The evident revision followed a tsunami of nationalist and backstage absorption from the planetary maritime industry, including home larboard and vas operators arsenic good arsenic U.S. exporters and importers of everything from ember and maize to bananas and concrete.

During a legislature proceeding Greer said the fees whitethorn not beryllium cumulative and would beryllium designed to debar economical harm.

Reuters reported separately that the medication was considering a assortment of options to soften the larboard interest connection aft receiving feedback from manufacture representatives successful backstage meetings oregon via hundreds of comments submitted online.

Implementation could besides travel arsenic precocious arsenic November arsenic a effect of the feedback, 3 sources tracking the issue, who declined to beryllium identified, told Reuters.

Industry executives had warned that U.S. taxpayers, workers and adjacent the U.S. shipbuilders and owners the authorities aims to enactment could beryllium harmed if the program was adopted without adjustments, due to the fact that astir each of the existing planetary shipping fleet would beryllium taxable to the immense fees.

Small-to-medium ports, for example, said they are acrophobic that ships volition halt calling connected them if USTR assesses the interest astatine each U.S. larboard visit. Concentrating calls astatine larger ports would overwhelm those facilities, portion starving secondary ports that person received billions of dollars of nationalist concern successful infrastructure improvements, larboard executives warned.

"The regularisation arsenic presently drafted, peculiarly the interest imposed per larboard call, whitethorn person important interaction connected the proviso concatenation that could origin unintended consequences that harm U.S. ports and those who trust connected the planetary proviso chain," said Scott Chadwick, Port of San Diego CEO, successful a connection to Reuters.