WPC 2025: US port charges on Chinese ships will hurt US exports

Udo Lange, chief executive of the Chemical Tanker Operators Stolt-Nielsen, said at a March 18 panel meeting focusing on supply chain issues that the potential charges would cause the cost of small vessels to soar to about $500000 from the current port fee of about $20000. For larger ships, the cost, currently about $40000, will soar to $1.5 million to $3 million.

"If you pay these fees, the cost of shipping some chemicals in the deep ocean will go up 30 percent, and for shorter routes and smaller ships, the cost will go up about 70 percent. So the result, of course, is that U.S. exports are no longer competitive and China, interestingly, will be the winner," Long said.

The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) has proposed charging operators of ships from China $1 million per entry into a U.S. port. A fleet of Chinese-built ships will be charged up to $1.5 million per entry into a U.S. port, depending on the proportion of such ships in the fleet. The U.S. Trade Representative's office said the rule would boost U.S. shipbuilding and reduce reliance on China's fast-growing commercial fleet. As of January 2024, China owns more than 19 percent of the world's commercial fleet.

Gina Fyffe, chief executive of the Traders Integra Petrochemicals, another WPC panelist, said: "If there is a port tax, one of the biggest losers will almost certainly be the US, and it will happen soon." Looking at the global fleet of chemical carriers and natural gas carriers, Fyffe pointed out that "a large part of the natural gas carrier fleet is built in China." So imposing tariffs would result in "no ethane, no LPG, no ethylene. So who would be hurt?" she said.

Langer pointed out that the chemical industry is the second largest manufacturing industry in the United States, and port charges will affect 25% of the GDP of the United States. He said U.S. chemical exports were worth about $160 billion.

He said that the current stainless steel tanker fleet consists of 850 vessels, about 1% of the global fleet, which totals about 20,000 vessels.

"The risks on the other side are enormous," he said. "It affects 25 percent of GDP. And it's more complicated to build chemical carriers than container ships. So it could take about a decade to build an industry."

while Stolt-Nielsen "likes the idea of doing shipbuilding in the United States, it's probably not an area you want to start in," he said.

Feifei said China is ready to deal with the tariffs. "This is not the first time the Chinese have experienced this. Tariffs have already been imposed on Chinese products. This is just on top of those tariffs. I believe the Chinese have been preparing contingency measures for some time," she said.

Domestic demand, Feifei said, "is not ideal, and they are still building factories. But at the same time, they are willing to export. If many of us make a mistake, it is not realizing that China will continue to build and will become self-sufficient in all kinds of products."

she said that the global economy, especially China's economy, is not performing as people hoped, "which makes the situation worse".

She said there were no winners in the tariff dispute. "I think it's the end consumer who will pay the price in the end because the product will circulate one way or another. It may go to different markets," she said. It would also reduce efficiency, she added. "We are entering a period of inefficiency, we are already in a period where very short-term decisions are made. Managing through Twitter, you have to anticipate the unknown, and the unknown changes from week to week," she said.

Panel moderator Daniel Evans, vice president and global head of fuel and refining at S & P Global Commodity Insights, said the situation in China has a significant impact on global trade for two reasons. "First, global trade is heavily dependent on China. Chinese exports account for about 1/3 of container trade, so anything that affects China affects global trade.

"The second thing is that China has begun to dominate the shipbuilding industry. In some industries, almost half of the ships at sea are made in China. So the recent proposal to impose high fees on Chinese-made or Chinese-operated ships calling at US ports will be hugely disruptive, pushing up costs and reducing demand," he said.

He says the impact is not just short-term. "China also dominates orders. Therefore, these measures may lead to the cancellation of orders, keeping ships in service for longer, thus affecting some emission reduction targets."