U.S. Moves Ahead With Plan to Charge Fees on Chinese Ships
Trade representative plans to charge ships for each voyage, not for each U.S. port call, following industry pushback
The U.S. is moving forward with a plan to charge fees on Chinese ships calling at American ports, part of the Trump administration’s effort to counter China’s dominance in ocean shipping and revive the domestic maritime industry.
The U.S. Trade Representative’s office on Thursday released the plan to charge steep fees on Chinese-owned and operated ships, and lower fees on Chinese-built vessels operated by non-Chinese carriers.
Ships will be charged for each voyage to the U.S. and not for each call at a U.S. port, a step back from an earlier proposal that had drawn sharp criticism from a raft of industries that warned of devastating costs to consumers and businesses. The USTR on Thursday said the fees will only be imposed on any given ship up to five times a year.
Starting in six months, Chinese owners and operators will be charged $50 a net ton on each U.S. voyage. This fee will increase by $30 a net ton each year for the next three years. Non-Chinese operators of Chinese-built ships in six months will be charged based on net tonnage or by container, starting at $18 a net ton or $120 a container. This will increase by $5 a net ton, or the proportional amount for each container, in each of the next three years.
The USTR’s fee plan comes about a week after President Trump signed an executive order directing national security adviser Mike Waltz and the heads of various federal agencies to draw up plans to resurrect domestic shipbuilding and the maritime workforce.
As a member of Congress last year, Waltz co-sponsored bipartisan legislation—the Shipbuilding and Harbor Infrastructure for Prosperity and Security for America Act—to boost domestic shipbuilding and expand the U.S.-flagged commercial fleet.
The USTR’s port fee plan was created in response to a U.S. probe that began under President Joe Biden in March 2024. The USTR determined in January that China was involved in unfair trade practices in the maritime, logistics and shipbuilding sectors.
China churns out more vessels than any other country. Its shipyards account for nearly 29% of containerships on the water and 70% of containerships on order, when measured by capacity, according to data firm Linerlytica. The nation also dominates construction of shipping containers and ship-to-shore cranes.
The trade representative decided to not impose a fee based on a company’s prospective orders of Chinese vessels, following industry pushback. The USTR said fees and restrictions on any given vessel will be suspended for up to three years once carriers can show proof of an order of a U.S.-built vessel.
The new fees would directly hit Chinese shipping and logistics behemoth Cosco, the world’s biggest shipping company in terms of capacity. The fees would also affect large non-Chinese companies such as Denmark’s A.P. Moller-Maersk and Switzerland-based Mediterranean Shipping, which have purchased scores of vessels from China’s busy shipyards.
Cosco, Maersk and MSC didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
The USTR said it would charge foreign-built car-carrier vessels based on their capacity, starting at $150 per car equivalent unit beginning in six months, to encourage U.S.-built car carrier vessels.
USTR won’t charge fees on bulk commodity exports on ships that arrive in the U.S. empty, nor on voyages in the Great Lakes, Caribbean and between U.S. territories.
The USTR also said in three years it would impose restrictions on transporting liquefied natural gas via foreign vessels and will increase the restrictions incrementally over the following 22 years to encourage the building of LNG vessels in the U.S.