U.S. to Hit Chinese Ships With Hefty Port Fees
Proposal would hit shipping giants Cosco and Maersk with millions in new fees to enter U.S. ports
Feb. 24, 2025 The Wall Street Journal
The proposal also mandates that a certain amount of U.S. exports be moved on U.S.-flagged and U.S.-built vessels, potentially restricting access for non-U.S. shipping companies.
The U.S. trade war with China is escalating beyond tariffs with a plan by the Trump administration to impose steep fees on Chinese shipping companies and any Chinese-built vessels that enter U.S. ports.
The proposal, unveiled on Friday by the office of the U.S. Trade Representative, would impose millions of dollars in new fees each time one of these vessels enters a U.S. port, adding costs that would likely be passed down to U.S. importers and exporters through higher freight rates.
Chinese shipyards accounted for more than half of the cargo ships, tankers and other ocean vessels that were built in 2023 to ferry goods across the seas for everyone from Amazon to Volkswagen, as well as U.S. farmers and energy producers.
The move would directly hit Chinese shipping and logistics behemoth Cosco, the world’s biggest shipping company in terms of capacity. Through large state-owned companies such as Cosco, China operated about 19% of the world’s commercial fleet as of January 2024, according to the U.S. government.
The proposed fees would also affect large non-Chinese companies such as Maersk and MSC, who have purchased scores of vessels from China’s busy shipyards. Big boxships make multiple port calls to U.S. ports, substantially multiplying the fees.
Cosco, Maersk and MSC didn’t respond to requests for comment.
The proposal is open to public comments until a March 24 hearing, when the Trump administration will decide whether the new fees will be imposed. The plan is in response to a U.S. probe that began under President Joe Biden in March 2024. The U.S. Trade Representative determined in January that China was involved in unfair trade practices in the maritime, logistics and shipbuilding sectors.
The proposed fees follow the Trump White House’s decision earlier this month to impose 10% tariffs on Chinese imports on top of tariffs Trump enacted in his first term.
Shipowners and analysts are trying to digest the proposal. Chinese-built ships face fees of up to $1 million for each U.S. port call based on the size of a company’s Chinese fleet, even those vessels that don’t sail to the U.S. There would be a second fee of up to $1 million based on how much of a company’s future ship orders come from Chinese shipyards.
And for Chinese-owned operators like Cosco, there would be an additional fee of up to $1 million for each U.S. port call based on the ship’s size.
“For containerships their costs will be at least 10 times higher than existing charges and affect American importers, exporters and consumers,” said Lars Jensen, chief executive of Demark-based Vespucci Maritime, who advises several top shipping lines. “I hope that the public debate will avert this madness.”
The proposal also mandates that a certain amount of U.S. exports are moved on U.S.-flagged and U.S.-built vessels. It seeks to restrict 1% of U.S. exports this year to vessels run by U.S. operators. The restriction would increase over time so that in seven years, 15% of exports would need to move on U.S.-flagged vessels, including 5% on U.S.-built vessels.
The U.S. no longer produces any significant number of commercial oceangoing ships. Several shipyards have only one big customer, the U.S. Navy, and those yards are often battling backlogs, worker shortages and cost overruns. Most of the commercial ships that China doesn’t produce these days come from South Korea or Japan.
Write to Costas Paris at costas.paris@wsj.com
The U.S. plans to impose hefty fees on Chinese shipping companies and Chinese-built vessels entering U.S. ports, escalating the trade war beyond tariffs.
The fees could significantly increase costs for U.S. importers and exporters, as Chinese shipyards account for over half of the cargo ships built globally.