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A U.S. government proposal to penalize Chinese ships could hit importers hardest.
The U.S. Trade Representative’s office is considering imposing
multimillion-dollar fees on Chinese-operated, Chinese-built and
Chinese-flagged ships that call at U.S. ports to counter China’s
dominance of global shipbuilding.
The WSJ Logistics Report’s Paul Berger writes that the fees stand little chance of bolstering domestic shipbuilding. Business groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Retail Federation say the fees could drive up shipping costs, forcing retailers and manufacturers to raise prices.
Logistics specialists say ocean carriers could blunt some of the
charges by shuffling their fleets so that a greater share of Japanese-
and South Korean-built ships call at U.S. ports. That would still leave
the carriers exposed to penalties based on the number of Chinese-built
ships they own or have on order. Almost 70% of orderbook capacity is
being built in Chinese yards, according to Linerlytica.
Because containerships make multiple calls at U.S. ports, ocean
carriers could be looking at millions of dollars in charges per voyage.
Analysts at Jefferies estimate the fees could add $150 to $300 to the average cost of shipping a container from China to the U.S. West Coast. |