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The Trump administration will begin to impose fees on the ships built in Chinese in American ports while trying to stimulate American shipbuilding, in a movement likely to degenerate trade tensions between Washington and Beijing.
The United States presented plans in a late deposit to be in line on steep charges on ships belonging to Chinese or built carrying goods to American ports for several years.
The costs are part of an effort to increase the pressure on China on what Washington supports is unfair trade practices, while stimulating the national manufacturing of ships. However, they caused an alarm among American exporters.
WE Farmers expressed dismay That an overly punitive cost structure harms their ability to export goods by forcing ships to visit fewer American ports in order to reduce the costs they have to pay.
Jamieson Greer, commercial representative of Donald Trump, said in a statement that the United States would charge costs to ship owners and $ 50 operators per net tonne from 180 days, increasing by $ 30 per tonne in the following three years. The operators of ships built in Chinese would be invoiced a lower amount.
“Ships and shipping are vital for American economic security and the free movement of trade,” said Greer.
“The actions of the Trump administration will begin to reverse Chinese domination, respond to threats from the American supply chain and send a demand signal for ships built in the United States,” he said.
A person in the maritime industry in China familiar with the case declared that the new proposal represented a softening of the original proposal of the American commercial representative, who had raised the possibility of Levy costs according to the ownership of shipping operators Chinese construction ships in their fleets.
This would have noted that all ship operators would have been responsible for the costs only for the possession of Chinese ships.
As part of the new proposals, non -Chinese shipping companies could avoid paying shipping costs using non -Chinese ships on American routes. However, Chinese shipping companies are still seriously affected by costs.
On Friday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry warned the United States that “measures such as the taxation of shipping costs … Not only increase world shipping costs” and disrupt supply chains, but “would also increase inflationary pressure in the United States, harming American consumers and businesses”.
“These actions will not relaunch American shipbuilding industry,” said the ministry, adding that China would take “necessary measures” to protect its interests.
Greer’s office said the United States would also impose “limited restrictions” abroad ships carrying liquefied natural gasBut the restrictions would not start for three years and increase over a period of 22 years.
The costs would be based on the number of trips to the United States and not applied for each wearing of the country visited during the same trip, reducing the risk that ships ignore small ports and harm American exporters.
The office of the American commercial representative added that empty ships arriving to export goods from the country would not be billed.
Additional reports from Nian Liu to Beijing
