News / USTR fee could price Chinese carriers out of US trades

The October implementation of the US Trade Representative port fees will mean a “forced concentration” of non-Chinese carriers onto US services that will reduce options for shippers, and could see Chinese carriers “effectively priced out of US trades”, warned maritime consultants at Drewry this week.

And, ultimately, this “could run into antitrust competition issues”, they added.

“Fundamentally, tariffs plus the USTR proposal are going to make container shipping to and from the US much more expensive, certainly from October,” said Simon Heaney, ...