News / Shippers and forwarders concerned at Trump's new FMC appointee

Photo: FMC

SME shippers and forwarders have expressed concerns that newly appointed Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) commissioner Laura DiBella’s alignment with the Trump administration may leave them out in the cold.

Nominated by President Trump, Ms DiBella was sworn-in on Tuesday, after serrving as Florida’s secretary of commerce, executive director of the Harbor Pilots Association, and director of the Fernandina Ocean Highway and Port Authority.

The FMC said: “Commissioner DiBella brings her economic development knowledge, business management skills, and maritime industry experience to the FMC.”

The founder of US air and ocean forwarder Lojistechs, Sara Dandan, told The Loadstar she wished Ms DiBella “had an actual shipping background”, but added that her port director experience was more shipping-related than that of others on the FMC who make and enforce the laws.

Ms Dandan said Ms DiBella “deserved to be given a chance”, noting that she had stated that she would “uphold the statutory directives” of the Ocean Shipping Reform Act; but she also said it was important to see what that meant to her.

Nonetheless, the new commissioner’s apparent obedience to President Trump has raised red flags within the sector, with a belief that he is unaware just how much of the industry is made up by small and medium sized players.

One source told The Loadstar: “Yes, she mentioned OSRA, but then parroted a very Trumpian phrase about the homeland. It could go either way. He’s mad at China and Europe right now, so could want to punish their shipping interests here in the US where they make billions.

“Or, not understanding the majority of this industry is small businesses, he could take a big business track, like he does with everything else, and start making policies that hurt these SME shippers. We will see.”

The appointment comes at a precarious time for the FMC, which has faced questions regarding the push to hold carriers responsible for what many see as exploitative pandemic-era practices, with Bed, Bath, and Beyond one of several bankrupt shippers seeking claims.

Those issues stretch back before the Trump administration, with the cost of bringing a claim against the carriers’ “Covid-era bullshit” considered prohibitively expensive, in some instances surpassing $20,000.

One source told The Loadstar “you’re not going to spend $20,000 on legal fees to get $5,000 back”, with carriers purportedly being very open that they are now just waiting-out the two-year statute of limitations to reduce what they have to pay out.

The source noted that, in an endeavour to fix this discrepancy between cost and claim, the FMC introduced its charge complaints process but despite it having “congratulated itself on being so amazing with the new charge complaint process”, the process was “very flawed”.