WASHINGTON – At a Senate Finance Committee hearing earlier this week, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said not all the USTR’s proposed fees on Chinese-built ships entering U.S. ports will be implemented.
Late February, in an effort to lessen China’s dominance in the shipbuilding sector, the USTR proposed charging port entrance fees of $1 million per vessel owned by Chinese operators, or charging $1,000 per net ton of a vessel’s cargo capacity. Non-Chinese shipping companies, too, were proposed to be targeted if Chinese-built ships made up half their fleets. The USTR cited that China’s control over the shipbuilding sector had grown from 5% in 1999 to more than 50% in 2023.
Since then, according to Reuters, opposition to the proposals has outweighed support.
“They’re not all going to be implemented. They’re not all going to be stacked,” Greer said at the hearing.
Reuters says USTR is studying all the public comments it has received on the proposals, with Greer saying the agency wants to “make sure that we have the right amount of time, the right incentives, to bring shipbuilding here without impacting our economy.”
Last month, nearly 200 trade associations –including both the Home Furnishings Assn. and the American Home Furnishings Alliance – wrote a letter to the USTR advising against the proposals.
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