'Restoring America's maritime dominance' – stop laughing at the back of the class
The US government has pushed ahead with plans to revitalise its shipbuilding industry, after President ...
© Mykhailo Polenok
The Trump administration’s plan to revive US shipbuilding by levying hefty fees on China-built or -flagged vessels calling at US ports is running into a hail of criticism from a broad range of US industry groups, including US vessel operators.
Virtually all welcome the idea of revitalising US shipbuilding, but they claim studies show it would cause significant harm to US businesses and the economy.
Yesterday kicked off a two-day session of hearings on the planned charges put forward by the Office ...
Comment on this article
Joshua Kim
March 25, 2025 at 11:25 pmShipping lines have been taken advantage of vessel built in China shipyard where Gov. subsidize. That is looking like price competitiveness compare to shipyard outside China , which make them loose the market. We do expect competition under fair trade environment.
Dwight Campbell
March 26, 2025 at 3:09 amThey put tariffs(taxes) on steel and aluminum (and threaten higher) while they face the dilemma of reducing their costs from 6X the price of Chinese ships. Those two acts are at odds with each other.
They had a larger share decades ago, and let it fall away.
If they want to get back into it, hitting your potential customers with devastating fines is at odds with what your stated goal is.
Business is a 2 way interaction. You don’t get success by twisting customers arms and extracting money until they give up. That is not a successful relationship. You can bet that is not how the Chinese grew their customer base. If both sides are not equally satisfied, alternatives will be found.
The Chinese are growing at close to 2X what the US is. They have a 5x advantage in market, and that market is still emerging. That’s where the money/investment is flowing. China and other Asian economies.
The west has to look beyond it’s borders and work with the rest of the world or it will just fall behind.