All American ships calling at Chinese ports will be charged according to tonnage, and China's counter-measure style is as steady and ruthless as ever!
On October 10, the Department of Transportation announced that starting from the 14th, special port fees will be levied on ships owned by U.S. entities, operated by U.S. entities, flying the U.S. flag, and manufactured in the United States.
The specific collection is divided into three stages. Starting from October 14, it will be charged at RMB 400 per ton.
From April 17 of each year in the future, the fee will be increased stepwise until April 17, 2028, when it will increase to RMB 1,120 per ton.
If a ship calls at multiple China ports on the same voyage, it will only pay the ship's special port fee at the first port of call, and will no longer be charged at subsequent ports of call. For the same ship, special port fees for ships shall not exceed 5 voyages within one year.
Why did China suddenly charge U.S. ships? is actually a completely reciprocal response to the previous U.S. decision to charge our ships.
The United States will start charging Chinese ships on October 14th, and the scale of charges will increase from US $50 to US $140. If the exchange rate is included, our charges for American ships this time are completely equal.
China's Ministry of Transport has responded to the matter, pointing out that the United States is first against China, its practice disregards the facts, fully exposes its unilateralism and protectionist nature, has a clear discriminatory color, seriously damages the legitimate interests of China's maritime industry, seriously disrupts the stability of the global supply chain, and seriously undermines the international economic and trade order.
China has resolutely adopted countermeasures in accordance with the law to promote the building of a fair and just international maritime market order and safeguard the security and stability of the international logistics supply chain.
Some people may not understand, is it as simple as the United States doing this just to charge some service fees for Chinese ships? In fact, there is a big game of chess hidden behind the United States.
It is well known that the shipbuilding industry in the United States has declined, the commercial shipbuilding capacity has shrunk significantly, and after the output is ranked in the world, the naval shipbuilding also faces the production capacity and delivery bottlenecks.
The U.S. government’s current plans are to introduce some policies to try to reverse this trend, but it’s still difficult to resume large-scale commercial shipbuilding in the short term.
Now, in addition to outsourcing shipbuilding to South Korea and India, the United States also wants to revitalize the U.S. shipbuilding heavy industry by taxing China ships.
Contrary to China's shipbuilding industry, it is already the midstream pillar of the global shipping market, with China's shipbuilding production accounting for more than 50% of the world in 2023, and new orders accounting for 61.4% in 2024.
95% of the world’s containers are controlled by China, and 80% of the U.S. ports’ shore bridge lifts come from Chinese companies.
China’s fleet owns 19.1% of the world’s merchant tonnage, while the U.S. naval share dropped from 2.32% in 2005 to 1.54%.
But would you say that the U.S. charges Chinese ships for service in order to completely exclude Chinese ships from U.S. ports?
If this policy is really implemented, in less than six months, global shipping would be messy.
This is the same as the United States starting a trade war, with the highest tariff on China exceeding 100%. Tariffs are not an end in themselves. The purpose is to force China to make concessions and sign "unequal treaties" that harm its own interests through tariff pressure.
The United States charges service fees on China ships for the same purpose. Then we charge service fees on American ships on an equal basis, sending a clear signal to the United States that it is absolutely impossible to force China to make concessions through pressure.