The United States plans to collect rates to dock in American ports any ship that is part of a fleet that includes ships built in China or with Chinese flag and will press the allies to act similarly or face reprisals, according to a draft decree.
The government of the president of the United States, Donald Trump, is writing the decree in an attempt to resurrect the national naval construction and weaken China’s control over the world ship industry.
Addressing China’s growing domain in the seas and the decrease in naval preparation in the United States is a rare consensus point among American republican and Democratic legislators.
According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Chinese naval builders represent more than 50% of all the load capacity of merchant ships that occurs in the world every year, compared to only 5% in 1999.
This increase has occurred at the expense of the naval builders of Japan and South Korea.
The regulation for China ships is not yet clear
The American naval construction reached its peak in the 1970s and now represents a small part of the production of the sector. The draft of the decree, dated February 27 and reviewed by Reuters on Thursday, proposes that rates are imposed on any ship that enters an American port, “regardless of where it has been built or flag bearer, if that ship is part of a fleet that includes built or flag bearers in the RPC (People’s Republic of China)”.
It was not possible to immediately contact the US government or the Chinese authorities to comment. The document is based on a proposal from the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) last month to impose rates of up to 1.5 million dollars to ships built in China that enter the US ports in the US ports after an investigation into the growing domain of China in the world -maritime and logistic construction sectors.
A key difference is that the draft of the decree does not include the text of the USTR that states that port rates to fleets will be imposed when ships built in China represent 25% or more of the ships in operation, planned for delivery or in order.
Nor does it establish the dollar value of these fees or how they will be calculated. The plan could inflict significant costs to the main container carriers, such as the China Cosco, the MSC Switzerland, the Danish Maersk and the Taiwanese Evergreen Marine, as well as the ships of ships that transport food, fuel and bulk cars.
The CEO of MSC, Soren Toft, said this week that the world’s largest consideration of the world could visit less US ports to limit its exposure to new rates.
With Reuters information.
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