<\/p>\n
The U.S. is one week away from imposing port fees on certain vessels with links to China, a move expected to cost the top 10 carriers $3.2 billion next year as President Donald Trump seeks to address China’s growing dominance on the high seas.<\/span><\/p>\n “While some observers believe the October 14 deadline may be extended – or even scrapped – as part of broader negotiations, the uncertainty has already unsettled carriers, adding another layer of geopolitical risk to fleet deployment strategies,” S&P said in a report this week.<\/p>\n Trump’s administration said fees imposed on ships built, owned or operated by Chinese entities will help pay to revive U.S. shipbuilding. A law to direct that long-term funding is making its way through the U.S. Congress with strong bipartisan support.<\/p>\n In an update late last week, the U.S. Trade Representative put ship owners on notice that they, not the agency, are responsible for establishing if the fees apply.<\/p>\n “The burden for determining if a vessel owes the fee is on the operator, NOT CBP,” USTR said.<\/p>\n It also said fees must be paid through the Department of the Treasury’s Pay.gov website, not at the port of entry.<\/p>\n Vessels owned or operated by a Chinese entity will face a flat fee of $80 per net tonnage per voyage to the U.S. Non-Chinese operators of Chinese-built ships will be charged the higher amount of either $23 per net tonnage or $154 per 20-foot equivalent unit capacity. Both fees are imposed on a ship no more than five times a year, maritime technology and data provider Alphaliner said.<\/p>\n Following intense industry push back, USTR significantly eased fees from initial proposals, exempted many U.S.-based operators and extended the timeline for fees on liquefied natural gas (LNG) carriers.<\/p>\n On the other hand, it expanded fees to include any non-U.S. built roll-on\/roll-off auto carriers – with exceptions for U.S.-flagged ships.<\/p>\n Alphaliner estimated that Chinese carrier COSCO 601919.SS, including its OOCL fleet, is most exposed to the fees.<\/p>\n COSCO’s fees could be as much as $1.53 billion next year – nearly half of the $3.2 billion projected for the top 10 cargo carriers, it said.<\/p>\n Many other carriers, including France’s CMA CGM, said they re-deployed Chinese-built ships to avoid the fees.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Beijing has responded. Premier Li Qiang signed a decree pledging countermeasures against any discriminatory measures on Chinese ships or crews.<\/p>\n Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are slated to meet at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit scheduled for late October through November 1 in South Korea.<\/p>\n Last year, U.S. shipyards built fewer than 10 commercial ships. China shipyards, many of which build both commercial and military vessels, turned out well over 1,000.<\/p>\n (Reuters – Reporting by Lisa Baertlein in Los Angeles, additional reporting by Gus Trompiz in Paris; Editing by David Gregorio)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n maritime professional<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The U.S. is one week away from imposing port fees on certain vessels with links to China, a move expected to cost the top 10 carriers $3.2 billion next year as President Donald Trump seeks to address China’s growing dominance on the high seas. “While some observers believe the October 14 deadline may be extended …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":68729,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-maritime-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68728\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/68729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}