Trump Administration Considers Softening China Ship Fee Plan After Pushback, Sources Say

By Jonathan Saul and Renee Maltezou Reuters April 8, 2025

LONDON/ATHENS, April 8 (Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s administration is considering softening its proposed fee on China-linked ships visiting U.S. ports after a flood of negative feedback from industries that said the idea could be economically devastating, according to six sources.

Among the changes under consideration are delayed implementation and new fee structures designed to reduce the overall cost to visiting Chinese vessels, according to the six sources with knowledge of the matter.

The sources asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue.

The White House and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), the government department involved in the drafting the proposal, did not respond to requests for comment.

Not all of the agency’s proposed multimillion-dollar fees for Chinese-built ships to dock at U.S. ports will be implemented and may not be cumulative, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told a U.S. Senate Finance Committee hearing on Tuesday.

The USTR has proposed that fees that could top $3 million per U.S. port call for China-built or linked vessels. The USTR’s proposal came after it completed an investigation into China’s maritime sector and development plans that began in April 2024.

‘Worse Than Covid’: Trump’s Port Fee Plan Could Upend U.S. Shipping Schedules

Trump’s administration argues that fees would curb China’s growing commercial and military dominance on the high seas and promote the U.S. domestic maritime industry.

But representatives from numerous industries, from coal to agriculture, argued during public hearings last month that the fee proposal could make it impossible to ship everything from coal to soybeans to market because of the prevalence of Chinese-linked vessels in the existing global shipping fleet, and the time it would take to replace them.

The administration was also thinking about changes to the fees to make them less onerous and reduce their impact on U.S. businesses, all six of the sources said.

Among options the administration was considering is charging a fee that is adjusted based on the number of Chinese-built ships in a company’s fleet, one source said. That would mean lower fees for those companies with fewer ships built in China.

The administration was also mulling a charge based on the tonnage of unloaded vessels rather than a flat fee, two of the sources said. This would mean lower fees for smaller ships, rather than flat fees for all vessels. That might ease the burden on ship owners with smaller vessels involved in niche trades such as transporting grains or other commodities.

The USTR had formulated the fee proposal with larger container ships that transport retail goods in mind, the sources said. The impact on commodities flows had not been fully considered, they said.

“The most impacted sectors are container shipping and car carriers, given their consolidated nature, and high proportion of payable fees under the proposed framework,” Jefferies analyst Omar Nokta wrote in an April 2 note.

“However, all shipping segments would be affected, given the level of disruption likely to take place as operators shift vessels to minimize exposure to U.S. fees.”

https://gcaptain.com/trump-administration-considers-softening-china-ship-fee-plan-after-pushback-sources-say/

Be real nice if only a handful of peeps got this info so leakers can get caught

They not happy

How Trump’s new economic order risks sinking green shipping

Splash April 9, 2025

Matt Kenney, the head of Laureate Communications, warns readers on how Trump’s economic policies could sideswipe the most ambitious maritime transformation in a generation.

Let’s begin with a truth so plain it should not require reiteration: President Trump’s tariff agenda is not a tantrum, nor a theatrical act of economic populism.

This cycle of underestimation has repeated often enough to become a caricature. But caricatures, like clichés, conceal as much as they reveal. Beneath the chaos lies a long game, one that is vital to US interests.

Trump has pulled the trigger on a plan to restructure the global trading order. (1) To reverse US de-industrialisation. (2) To defend the dollar’s supremacy, and (3) redraw the postwar map of economic and security dependencies around a renewed American centre of gravity.

First, unleash tariff disruption on a scale sufficient to unnerve the whole world. Second, establish a permanent framework of reciprocal tariffs to pressure key industries and sort countries in to buckets – green, yellow, and red. Third, and most ambitious, use this leverage to broker a new Bretton Woods-style agreement. A “Mar-a-Lago Accord” in which countries in the green bucket agree to align their currencies with the dollar, pay for American security guarantees, and re-enter a formalised hierarchy of global economic access.

If this sounds implausible, consider that the architects of this vision are not amateurs. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, a hedge fund veteran who once helped “break the Bank of England”, and senior advisor Stephen Miran, a Harvard economist and author of A User’s Guide to Restructuring the Global Trading System, have spent years preparing the intellectual scaffolding for precisely this kind of realignment. They do not see the current tariff chaos as policy failure, but as step one. Trump is just the kind of trash-can banger needed to hammer it home decisively.

What the administration is attempting is nothing less than a replacement of the neoliberal order that took shape in the 1980s (one that prioritised capital flows, cheap imports, and strong-dollar finance) with a new order built around controlled access, managed exchange rates, and an industrial base sturdy enough to withstand a war.

The geopolitical implications are enormous. But so too are the consequences for sectors caught between the tectonic plates. Global shipping, in particular, faces the risk of being crushed not through negligence, but through omission. The maritime sector is not the object of the trade war, but it may well be its first major casualty.

The hidden cost of strategic disruption

In recent years, the shipping industry has made a credible attempt to invest in decarbonisation. New orders for dual-fuel vessels capable of running on LNG, methanol, and ammonia are at record highs. European regulators have introduced carbon pricing, lifecycle emissions accounting, and mandatory port infrastructure requirements. Large carriers have begun investing in zero-emission corridors, fuel certification schemes, and alternative bunker networks. For the first time in its history, shipping has the contours of a climate strategy.

But it is also a strategy on a knife’s edge. The costs are high. The incentives are fragile. The investment horizon is long and uncertain. Green fuels are vastly more expensive than conventional ones. Port infrastructure is patchy and unevenly distributed. Regulatory convergence is partial at best. The entire project depends on policy stability and economic coherence.

This is what tariffs now threaten to unravel.

When the United States raises import duties on low-cost machinery from Asia, the price of retrofitting green vessels increases. When reciprocal tariffs lead to reduced trade flows, the container volumes that fund operational upgrades decline. When a Chinese-built ship is penalised at an American port, regardless of its flag, registry, or operator, the global shipbuilding market is turned into a proxy battlefield.

The separation scheme

For China, the signal is unmistakable. Tariffs are not a disciplinary tool, they are an exclusion mechanism. China dominates global shipbuilding, exporting vessels at a scale unmatched by any other nation. If its shipyards are now treated as liabilities, it will not wait for inclusion. It will build a parallel system.

Already, Beijing is expanding its capacity for alternative fuels, investing in methanol supply, and hardwiring its Belt and Road network with maritime bunkering infrastructure. But could we be about to witness the splintering of maritime trade into two hemispheres? One system aligned with European and American regulatory frameworks. Another with Chinese capital, standards, and political guarantees? Is that still so crazy to consider?

If this bifurcation occurs, decarbonisation will become a collateral narrative. Each bloc could pursue its own methods, standards, and reporting protocols. Mutual recognition could wither, certification regimes could fracture, and the already fragile consensus on global climate action could dissolve altogether.

Between currency and carbon

The irony is rich. A strategy designed to protect American industry may end up undercutting the very industries poised to deliver the next wave of industrial reinvention. Clean fuels, advanced engines, port electrification, carbon sequestration, digital transformation — these are not niche interests. They are growth sectors, bursting with jobs, capital, and competitiveness. The fact that Homo Sapiens might also be able to cleave to our spinning rock a while longer comes some way down the list of benefits. In disrupting this, Washington is not asserting control. It is bleeding leverage.

More:

https://splash247.com/how-trumps-new-economic-order-risks-sinking-green-shipping/

>>22886952

"cause it's free

and I see that it's me

Who's lost and never found

Quick, send in Fang Fang

Chinese operator of Darwin port faces the boot

Sam Chambers April 8, 2025

Australia plans to scrap a Chinese company’s lease on Darwin port.

The port concession in the far north of the country has become an election issue with both the government and the opposition vowing to buy back the port from its 99-year lease to Landbridge, a $370m deal that was signed 10 years ago.

The decision to scrap the port concession has been on the cards for more than a year, but it has drawn ire in Beijing.

“We urge the Australian side to provide a fair, non-discriminatory and predictable business environment for Chinese enterprises investing and operating in Australia, and refrain from overstretching the concept of national security or politicising normal business cooperation,” a Chinese government spokesperson said yesterday.

https://splash247.com/chinese-operator-of-darwin-port-faces-the-boot/

Panama Alleges Port Concession Violations, Increasing Pressure on CK Hutchison

By Michael McDonald (Bloomberg) — April 8, 2025

Panama’s top auditor accused port operator CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd. of wrongdoing, providing a potential pathway for the Central American country to wrest control of canal facilities caught up in a diplomatic tug-of-war between the US and China.

Panama Ports Co., part of Hong Kong-based Hutchison’s far-flung operations, failed to obtain required approvals for a contract extension in 2021, and owed millions in dues, Comptroller General Anel Flores told reporters Monday following an audit.

Flores plans to file a criminal complaint with Panama’s attorney general’s office on Tuesday against the maritime authorities who granted the 2021 contract renewal and against executives of Panama Ports, he said. Ultimately, Panama’s Maritime Authority will need to decide whether to rescind the contract, he said.

CK Hutchison didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The move ratchets up pressure on CK Hutchison, founded by Li Ka-Shing, to give up control of two Panama Canal ports, after US President Donald Trump began pushing to rid the canal of Chinese influence. The audit was launched shortly after Trump returned to office in January; Hutchison then agreed to sell operations including the two facilities to a BlackRock Inc.-led consortium.

But Chinese authorities have put pressure on the conglomerate to scuttle the BlackRock deal, which would net Hutchison more than $19 billion in cash should the transaction go through. Before the audit results were announced, BlackRock Chief Executive Officer Larry Fink said he anticipates nine months of regulatory review, including from China, before a final decision is made on the deal.

“I’m actually pretty optimistic that we will find a solution because, if you look at it, everything was done in the right order,” Fink said in an interview Monday at the Economic Club of New York. “I think it’s going to be a very interesting thing to watch for geopolitical purposes.”

The audit’s outcome makes it clear that Panama’s government, which has close ties to the US, can attempt to remove Hutchison even if the BlackRock deal doesn’t go through.

Flores said that in addition to the lapses in required approvals, his audit found that Panama Ports used a series of tax-exempt subcontractors to lower the amount it pays to the government.

The company used tax breaks to save $850 million of at least $1.3 billion it owed in payments to the republic in the first 25 years of the contract period, Flores said, adding that it currently owes $300 million. The company also breached its agreement to share 10% of net income with Panama’s government, Flores said.

“There are two people in a transaction, but they need to know what they are selling and that what they are buying might not be what they were told,” Flores said, referring to the BlackRock deal. “There are breaches, nonpayments and countless things that were wrongly calculated.”

The Balboa and Cristobal ports on either side of the 51-mile (82-kilometer) Panama Canal, which connects the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, form a key part of the deal involving a total of 43 CK Hutchison facilities.

While CK Hutchison is based in Hong Kong, a Chinese territory with its own borders, currency and legal system, Beijing has tightened its grip on the former British colony since 2020 when it imposed a broad national security law that’s paved the way for a crackdown on dissent.

A consortium backed by BlackRock agreed last month to buy a majority of Panama Ports and other Hutchison assets. But the parties are yet to sign the deal while it’s being scrutinized by Chinese authorities.

https://gcaptain.com/panama-alleges-port-concession-violations-increasing-pressure-on-ck-hutchison/

>>22886993

World’s Largest Suction Sails Installed on Juice Carrier

Mike Schuler April 8, 2025

Spain-based Bound4blue has completed the installation of the world’s largest suction sails on a specialized juice carrier, marking a new chapter in wind-assisted ship propulsion.

The groundbreaking project, completed at Astander Shipyard in Santander, Spain, features four 26-meter high eSAIL® units installed on the MV Atlantic Orchard, a vessel chartered by Louis Dreyfus Company (LDC) and owned by Wisby Tankers AB.

The installation demonstrated remarkable efficiency, with each sail unit installed in less than 24 hours. The vessel, originally built in 2014 as a dry bulk carrier before its 2020 conversion, is expected to achieve approximately 10% fuel consumption and emission savings, depending on its trading routes.

“eSAILs® open an easy, proven and economically beneficial pathway to greener operations for a wide variety of shipping segments, including unique vessel types such as juice carriers,” said José Miguel Bermúdez, CEO and Co-founder of bound4blue. “This specialist project is a prime example of how our technology meets customer needs. In this case, the units were lifted into positions originally occupied by four deck cranes, with all electrical and structural work, sail preparation, and full unit programming carried out in one co-ordinated yard visit.”

The project emerged following a comprehensive evaluation by LDC’s shipping decarbonization team, with Lloyd’s Register providing third-party assessment of competing solutions before bound4blue’s autonomous system was selected in late 2023.

Sébastien Landerretche, LDC’s Global Head of Freight, commented on the milestone: “Reflecting LDC’s journey to help shape a low-carbon maritime industry, and thanks to bound4blue’s unique technology as well as Wisby Tankers’ collaboration, we are excited about this significant first step of a voyage that represents a new milestone in our Group’s long history in shipping.”

More:

https://gcaptain.com/worlds-largest-suction-sails-installed-on-juice-carrier/

See this? A ship dedicated to being a tanker for juice and in 2025 I still can't get MD 2020 in a nice box with a straw like Hi-C

>>22887057

Apu, the Hanger is not the place to find Space Babes