The Trump administration continue to set their sights on China, following news of a recent proposal to introduce fees for ships that were built in Chinese shipyards when they arrive at US ports.
The Office of United States Trade Representative (USTR) recently concluded that significant fees should be introduced for loading and unloading China-built ships.
The fees could penalise carriers by up as much as $1m per vessel, regardless of the carrier nationality or which flag the vessel sails under, and the suggestion is to scale them according to how many Chinese-built ships the carrier operates. As per the proposal below:
- Carriers with fleet of 50% or more Chinese-built: $1m per vessel call.
- Carriers with fleet of 25-49% Chinese-built: $750,000 per vessel call.
- Carriers with fleet of 0-24% Chinese-built: $500,000 per vessel call.
The ‘America First’ based proposal may also include a rebate for ships built in the United States, but around half of today’s ships are built in China, and less than 1% are US built.
Therefore, if this proposal carries through, it is very unlikely that carriers, importers or exporters would see this as anything other than a disadvantage.
