Recently, China has successively offered two heavyweight countermeasures against the United States. First, China's countermeasures are to strengthen export controls on rare earths; The second is to levy port service fees on ships manufactured, operated and held in the United States, and ships held by American companies with more than 25% shares.
As soon as these two counter-measures came out, Trump swore at cabinet officials at the White House, especially US Treasury Secretary Lutnick, who became the target of Trump's "full firepower".
The important reason Trump is so angry is that China has accurately captured the seven inches of the U.S. so that the U.S. regrets not too soon.
Export controls on rare earths mean that a series of fields such as U.S. military equipment, advanced chips, and automobile industry must be controlled by China, otherwise it will be impossible to obtain rare earth raw materials from China or produced with Chinese technology.
Trump shouted a great slogan to make American shipbuilding industry once again, the prerequisite is not investment, not technology, but the market. Even if the U.S. shipbuilding is more beautiful, more advanced, can not sell out and is useless. China's counteraction, the most core goal, is to make the U.S. ships can not sell out.
China accounts for 14.2% of the world’s foreign trade, with more than 60% of the world’s merchant ships providing shipping services for China’s foreign trade. These merchant ships should never buy U.S. merchant ships if they want to stay in the Chinese market, because the huge cost of shipping service will be hard to bear.
In this context, no shipowner is willing to take such high economic risks and buy US-made merchant ships, and the revival of the U.S. shipbuilding industry will be completely hopeless.
It is worth mentioning that just when China and the United States were "fighting" over ship service fees. U.S. ally New Zealand suddenly stepped forward and gave Trump a "backstab."
On October 14, New Zealand announced that it had handed over South Korea's "two large ferries" to China's Broad Ship Manufacturing. The two ferries took seven years before ordering, and after a huge loss of 600 million, New Zealand eventually chose to "broken arms to live" and transfer the order to China.
It's no wonder that New Zealand, mainly because the American shipbuilding industry is really powerless, and Trump has played New Zealand too hard.
In 2017, New Zealand established the iRex project. At that time, they were looking for factories around the world that could manufacture large ferries. The first choice was the United States, followed by South Korea.
At the beginning, the project was signed to South Korea, and the price was 770 million. In less than three years, the price increased to 1.45 billion. South Korea's statement on the price increase is very straightforward. The United States has high tariffs and raw materials are too expensive, so it can't be done without the price increase.
South Korea itself does not have that ability to build, the two sides can sign contracts, it is entirely Trump in the back push. As a "allied country", New Zealand is very confident in the United States, South Korea, can by 2023, South Korea told them they may increase the price to 4 billion, before the construction is completed.
In 2025, New Zealand gritted its teeth and cancelled the order, only to learn that the ferry had not even been built properly, and the railway minister turned pale with anger. What is ridiculous is that on August 26, President Lee Zai-ming also shamelessly said that South Korea and the United States would work together to create a "shipbuilding miracle."
The United States is strong, but New Zealand is willing to betray each other and give orders to China. Why?
China's shipbuilding industry went to the forefront, and the broad ship became the largest shipbuilding enterprise in the South, New Zealand has not built a good ferry in South Korea for seven and eight years, and it could be built in the broad ship for three years.
Second, China's shipbuilding materials have achieved self-sufficient and completely controllable cost prices, giving each other sufficient guarantees.
The United States is afraid of China's shipbuilding industry and has been suppressing ship development. It introduced clause 301 in April and increased berthing fees in October. These have not brought the Chinese shipbuilding industry to an end, but have instead made a big difference internationally.
Once, the United States and Europe occupied an important position, now China's one country occupies half of the world's total, and there is a new breakthrough in technology.
The M350 floating oil tanker recently delivered by CSSC can meet the needs of 160 people working and living at the same time, with a total length of 350 meters, which can be called a "Big Mac".
This is just one of the commercial ships, and there are many models to choose from. Commercial ships in the United States account for less than 1%, which shows how backward they are.
Technology can't keep up, build and raise the price, it's no wonder New Zealand does not do the "wrong head", to withdraw funds in a timely manner, the loss of 600 million has also been recognized!
They know that if they continue to cooperate, if South Korea fails, they will waste time and money. Most of the money spent goes into the pockets of the United States and cannot be spat out again.
According to their "thick face", they will never return New Zealand money, but instead continue to "make big cakes".
The United States was unwilling before. Knowing that China's shipbuilding industry was developing well, it quickly cooperated with South Korea to make the "American shipbuilding industry" flourish again.
But South Korea’s base is weak, and the United States still lacks technological upgrades, and if it progresses with China, how will it lose New Zealand’s orders?
In the two Korean ferries built seven and eight years, only to see a boat floor, the Chinese side can all in these seven and eight years, to build many aircraft carriers!
To put it bluntly, New Zealand is afraid of the United States, and even more afraid of falling into it. The ferry cannot be seen and the money cannot be recovered. For the sake of benefits, I didn't care about face and turned around to cooperate with China.
Conclusion:
Giving the order to China is not that they are not afraid of the United States, it is globalization today, the United States relying on unilateralism, has pushed too many industries to the bottom, and the United States itself is deeply damaged.
After the tariffs came out, 80% of corporate stocks fell, and even big companies like Apple, Microsoft, let alone the small businessmen, could not afford it.
On ships, the United States took the lead in proposing port berthing fees, but China responded with all its strength, making the US shipbuilding industry miserable and directly on the verge of bankruptcy.
As long as ships are built in the United States and South Korea, more than half of the raw materials come from China. Tariffs + berthing fees, price increases are too normal. The real victims are those who trust the United States but are harvested as leeks.
New Zealand lost 600 million this time, but they understand a truth. Cooperation is not about who has a good relationship, but about who has "real strength".