The Consequences Of Imposing Port Charges On Chinese Ships Have Emerged! Shipping Industry Investors: International Trade Has Changed

The consequences of imposing port charges on Chinese ships have emerged! Shipping Industry Investors: International Trade Has Changed

The construction site on the coast of Louisiana, USA, was supposed to be filled with steel pipes from Germany, but now it is empty.

On the other end of the Atlantic, at the port of Hamburg in Germany, 16000 tons of steel pipes are quietly accumulating dust in the warehouse - this was supposed to be a key material for energy projects in the United States, but now it has been put on hold by a trade storm initiated by the US government.

It all started with a proposal from the Office of the United States Trade Representative two months ago: to impose a maximum port call fee of $1.5 million on all Chinese made or Chinese controlled vessels.

 

The White House claims that this is a strategy to "revive the American shipbuilding industry," but the reality is like a precise boomerang that directly hits the energy lifeline of the United States itself.

When Jose Severin of German logistics giant Mercury Group received notification, 80% of his transatlantic cargo ships suddenly became "high-risk assets" because these ships were all built by Chinese shipyards.

 

When trade barriers become a noose

The United States may have underestimated the globalized nature of the modern maritime industry. At the container terminal of Hamburg Port, $200 million worth of steel pipes are undergoing a magical realism like fate twist.

This batch of special steel pipes customized for the Louisiana liquefied natural gas project requires 37 processes such as welding and coating to meet US standards. However, after going through countless hardships to complete production, transportation costs have skyrocketed by 150% due to the new regulations.

 

Now every Chinese made cargo ship has to pay an additional fee equivalent to 15% of the value of the goods, "Severin said with a bitter smile as he opened the ledger." This is like crossing the Atlantic twice for German steel to reach its destination

 

Ironically, the end users of these steel pipes are American energy giants. When contacted by reporters, the person in charge of the project refused to disclose their name, but admitted that the project progress has been delayed by 15%. "We are studying using domestically produced steel pipes in the United States, but the local production capacity cannot even meet 20% of the existing demand

The disruption of this industry chain is not an isolated case. According to statistics from the International Chamber of Shipping, the implementation of the new regulations is likely to cause a 40% drop in Atlantic shipping capacity, forcing at least 17 US infrastructure projects to be postponed.

The Truth behind the Rise of China's Shipbuilding Industry

 

The United States has pointed the finger at China's "market monopoly" in the shipbuilding industry, but selectively ignored two key facts: first, China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation invested $5.8 billion in research and development last year, exceeding the sum of the three traditional shipbuilding countries of the United States, Japan, and South Korea; second, the average age of the US merchant fleet has reached 28 years, while LNG carriers delivered by Chinese shipyards have accounted for nearly half of the world's new orders.

This gap is not accidental - when the United States handed over the shipbuilding industry to financial capital after 2008, China was restructuring its industrial landscape at a rate of renovating three shipbuilding bases every year.

 

The rise of China's shipbuilding industry is the result of market selection. Their shipyards can simultaneously build six 240000 ton container ships, while the largest shipyard in the United States is still maneuvering space for the maintenance of an aircraft carrier, "wrote Hiroshi Yamada, former head of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries' shipbuilding division, in a column for" Oriental Economy "

The generational gap in industrialization capabilities has led the United States to attempt to reverse the situation through administrative means, like using a wooden stick to block the tide.

At the digital dispatch center of Rotterdam Port, the red alert flashing on the large screen is particularly glaring. 34% of the shipping routes here involve Chinese made ships. After the implementation of the new regulations, the port turnover efficiency in Europe has decreased by 19%. Shipowners have started to frantically purchase the production capacity of Hyundai Heavy Industries in South Korea and Imabari Shipbuilding in Japan, resulting in a 22% surge in new ship quotes within two weeks.

This is not just a matter of shipping costs, "warned Emmanuel Panagiotis, president of the International Chamber of Shipping." When ship owners are forced to give up the most cost-effective capacity, the resilience of the global supply chain is disappearing

Who will repair the broken compass?

At the emergency meeting of EU trade ministers in Brussels, the German representative held a backlog list of 16000 tons of steel pipes and questioned, "We followed all environmental standards and used the most expensive German workers, only to be knocked down by our own allies' trade barriers

Behind this anger lies a deeper institutional crisis - as the WTO dispute settlement mechanism continues to be paralyzed due to US obstruction, unilateralism is dragging the world into the era of "law of the jungle".

The Chairman of China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation's speech at the Davos Forum was deafening: "We have increased shipbuilding efficiency by 8 times in 15 years, not through subsidies, but by conquering 126 bottleneck technologies every year. If this is called unfair competition, then all industrial revolutions in the history of human progress should be judged

It is worth noting that the US Maritime Administration announced on the same day that it will invest $4.5 billion to upgrade shipbuilding facilities, but the industry generally believes that this money is only enough to renovate two medium-sized shipyards.

Under the sunset of Hamburg Port, the silent pile of steel pipes reflects the cold light of global cracks. When the cost of shipping breaks the critical point, it not only triggers a price increase for goods, but also a crisis of trust in the entire modern economic system.

When can this crack be healed? Perhaps one day, engineers in Louisiana will have to personally dismantle rusted steel pipes, and decision-makers on both sides of the Pacific will finally realize that the essence of nautical charts is to connect land, not create abysses.